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Apple Seriously Considered Switching to AMD in 2011 MacBook Air

Eric Slivka — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:04:12 +0000

In an upcoming profile of AMD, Forbes reports that the company’s Llano family of Fusion combination CPU-GPU systems was under consideration by Apple to be used as the brains behind the MacBook Air for its 2011 revision. AMD lost out to Intel, however, as the necessary parts were late in being delivered to Apple and had unacceptably high failure rates.

AMD struggled with its new fabless model while trying to crank out “fusion” processors that combined a CPU and a GPU in a single part. On paper the idea was promising. A notebook processor dubbed “Llano” got a close look from Apple for an update to the ultralight MacBook Air, scheduled for launch in mid-2011.

But AMD couldn’t get early working samples of Llano to Apple on time, one former employee says. Several former AMD employees disagree on just how close AMD came. “We had it,” one says. But too many of the Llano parts were faulty. AMD lost the deal.

The company reportedly also pitched Apple on using its Brazos family of Fusion systems in the Apple TV, but Apple proved to be uninterested in the proposal.

Forbes’ Brian Caulfield has more on AMD’s efforts to lure Apple in a separate article in which he talks further about yield issues on the Fusion chips planned for the MacBook Air.

The claim echoes a November report from SemiAccurate alleging that AMD’s Fusion platform was Apple’s “Plan A” for the 2011 MacBook Air and that such machines were “on the verge of production” before Apple ultimately decided to stick with Intel.

Apple had been struggling with chip options in its small portables for several years as licensing issues prevented graphics companies such as NVIDIA from developing integrated graphics solutions for Intel’s latest processors. With Apple being forced to choose between slower Core 2 Duo processors paired with fast NVIDIA graphics and faster Intel Core i-series processors hampered by slow integrated graphics from Intel, Apple opted to continue using the aging Core 2 Duo processors for much longer than it would have otherwise liked.

Improvements in Intel’s integrated graphics did allow Apple to transition to significantly improved Core i5 and i7 processor in the current generation of MacBook Air models, but it seems that Apple was also weighing AMD’s offerings as it sought to work its way out of the constraints of Intel’s graphics issues.

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OnLive Launches Premium ‘Desktop Plus’ with Flash and PDF-Enabled Web Browser

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:54:05 +0000

Last month, OnLive introduced its free OnLive Desktop service that allows users to run virtual instances of Microsoft Office apps streamed from OnLive’s remote PCs to the users’ iPads. The company has now added Adobe Acrobat Reader support to the service and introduced a paid “Desktop Plus” subscription service to provide enhanced functionality including priority access and a Flash- and PDF-enabled browser experience. OnLive Desktop Plus is priced at $4.99 per month.

The free OnLive Desktop App, currently available on iPad—and coming soon to Android, PC, Mac, TVs and monitors—delivers no-compromise, media-rich, instant-response Windows applications including Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint software, and as of today, Adobe Reader for PDFs, along with 2GB of cloud storage. OnLive Desktop Plus, available for $4.99/month at www.desktop.onlive.com, provides all OnLive Desktop Standard features plus OnLive’s gigabit-speed accelerated browsing experience with full Flash player capability. With OnLive Desktop Plus, the iPad not only becomes 100% Flash compatible, it becomes the world’s fastest mobile Flash player.

As with the original OnLive Desktop service, there is some lag in responding to touch input and visual artifacts when moving quickly through documents or web pages. The lag made it somewhat difficult to work with interactive Flash-based content such as games in our testing, but the service does allow for decent viewing of Flash video content on the web.

While that slight lag is a function of the time needed for data to transfer between OnLive’s servers and the user’s iPad, OnLive’s PCs themselves are connected to the Internet with gigabit connections, making for very fast loading of content and data transfers, which is then optimized for the iPad’s display and passed along to the user.

OnLive is planning yet another tier of service, a $9.99/month “Pro” level that will offer additional PC applications for use from the iPad and an upgrade from to 50 GB of storage, up from 2 GB on the regular and Plus levels.

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Apple and Other Mobile App Distributors Agree to New Privacy Policy Notification Standards

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:16:43 +0000

The California Attorney General’s office today announced that Apple, Google, and other companies running mobile app marketplaces have agreed to implement new standards for notifying users of privacy policies associated with apps offered in their stores. The provisions will require that developers of apps that collect personal information include privacy policies with their app sthat can be viewed directly from the store before downloading the apps themselves.

Attorney General Harris forged the agreement with six companies whose platforms comprise the majority of the mobile apps market: Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Research In Motion. These platforms have agreed to privacy principles designed to bring the industry in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy.

Links to privacy policies will be in consistent locations within the App Store and other marketplaces, offering users the ability to view the policies at a glance. Developers who do not comply with these requirements can be charged under California law, and Apple and the other companies signing on to the agreement have pledged to educate developers about privacy policy requirements and help them to meet the standards.

Finally, the agreement requires that the companies provide simple methods for users to report apps that do not comply with privacy requirements, as well as systems for dealing with those reports.

Following publicity about location-tracking and privacy on mobile devices last year, U.S. Senator Al Franken sent letters to Apple and Google specifically asking if they would be willing to require clear privacy policies for apps distributed through their stores.

Apple’s Bud Tribble had noted during a Senate hearing on mobile privacy that privacy policies from developers would not go far enough in protecting users’ information, arguing that Apple’s own efforts to provide visual indicators of information sharing such as an icon becoming visible when the user’s location is being transmitted are more effective at policing privacy issues.

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Foxconn Accused of Hiding Underage Workers During Audits

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:03:43 +0000

AppleInsider reports on an interview with a representative of Hong Kong-based nonprofit Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) claiming that Foxconn used advance knowledge of recent audits by the Fair Labor Association to hide underage workers from auditors. Specifically, the report addresses the issue of 16- and 17-year olds, who are permitted to work under Apple’s supplier code of conduct if allowed under local laws, but with special restrictions on types and duration of their work.

[SACOM project officer Debby Sze Wan] Chan said she had heard from two Foxconn workers in Zhenghou last week that the manufacturer was “prepared for the inspection” by the Fair Labor Association that had been commissioned by Apple and began last week.

“All underage workers, between 16-17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments,” Chan reported the workers as having said.

Other workers reported to the agency that Foxconn had relaxed certain policies such as by adding additional break periods ahead of the audits.

Fair Labor Association president Auret van Heerden noted to Nightline’s Bill Weir in a segment that aired yesterday that his group always expects to receive “a show” when it arrives for its audits, but that its interview techniques and other strategies help to dig beneath the surface to find more accurate representations of working conditions.

Chan’s organization also focuses on issues of student labor, alleging that local Chinese governments have in some cases forced school to sent their students to Foxconn for internships even when the work is completely outside of their field of study.

Apple’s high-profile presence and Foxconn’s role as its largest manufacturing partner have cast the two firms into the spotlight over the issue of worker rights and factory conditions. The issues are of course not unique to the two companies, although Apple’s public statements and attempts transparency have also contributed to the focused attention.

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Japanese iTunes Store Enhancements: iTunes Plus, 3G Downloads, Ringtones, Complete My Album

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:07:47 +0000

Yesterday, we noted that the music component of iTunes in the Cloud was rolling out to Japanese users, allowing them to freely download any music content previously purchased from the iTunes Store. But as now summarized by 9to5Mac, various reports in the Japanese media reveal that the additions have been much more extensive and have brought Apple’s Japanese iTunes Store offerings nearly on par with most of the company’s other major markets.

Highlighting some of the changes, Apple has posted a What’s New page [Google translation] for iTunes on its Japanese site. The new additions include:

- 3G downloads: Music downloads from iOS devices had previously been restricted to Wi-Fi only, but users can now access content over 3G networks.

- iTunes Plus: The Japanese iTunes Store now supports the DRM-free 256 kbps iTunes Plus format, up from the previous 128 kbps versions carrying usage restrictions. Labels will need to upgrade their content to the new standard, so it may take some time for all music to become available in iTunes Plus format.

- Ringtones: Music ringtones are now available for purchase in the Japanese iTunes Store.

- Mastered for iTunes: Rolling out on a worldwide basis, Apple is now featuring songs and albums that have been specifically mastered for the iTunes Store to provide the best sound quality for the format.

- Complete My Album: Users who previously purchased individual tracks from an album can now purchase the entire album for a discounted price based on a credit for their individual-track purchases.

As for iTunes Match, Apple’s subscription service currently available in 37 countries that allows users to either match or upload their entire music libraries regardless of source for access from any iCloud-enabled device, the company is reportedly planning to bring the program to Japan during the second half of 2012.

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Apple and Proview Face Off in Shanghai Court Over iPad Trademark

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:46:36 +0000

While Proview has had some success in its battle against Apple’s use of the “iPad” trademark in China with minor court decisions against local retailers, the two companies are now going directly head-to-head in a higher-profile case underway in Shanghai. There has been no decision in the case yet, but lawyers for both sides spent four hours today laying out their evidence for the presiding judge. Reuters notes that Apple has gone on the offensive by citing the impact on the Chinese economy if iPad sales were to be halted, given the iPad’s massive popularity and Proview’s current lack of any product offering under that name.

“Proview has no product, no markets, no customers and no suppliers. It has nothing,” Hu Jinnan, a partner at Guangdong Shendadi law firm, which is representing Apple in the case, told the court.

“Apple has huge sales in China. Its fans line up to buy Apple products. The ban, if executed, would not only hurt Apple sales but it would also hurt China’s national interest.”

Apple’s tactics of highlighting the economic impact of the iPad and calling into question the validity of Proview’s trademark given a lack of physical product using the name are side arguments to its primary claims, which hold that Proview agreed to transfer the rights to an Apple-held company in late 2009 and has failed to uphold its part of the deal.

Proview’s iPAD, sold from 1998 until 2009 (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

A Hong Kong court sided with Apple last year, ruling that Proview and its subsidiaries had colluded to extort significant sums of money from Apple in refusing to hand over the Chinese rights to the trademark. But Apple needs to convince courts in mainland China to adopt the same view as it seeks to thwart Proview’s attempts at halting iPad sales and its requests for as much as $2 billion in compensation. Proview has argued that the Hong Kong ruling is inadmissible in Chinese courts, although Apple could presumably submit the same primary evidence to the Chinese court that it did in the Hong Kong case, seeking to convince the Chinese judge to independently come to the same conclusion.

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The Beatles Launch Exclusive Ringtones Through iTunes Store

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:42:44 +0000

Continuing their close relationship with the iTunes Store following a landmark deal to launch their music in the store in late 2010, The Beatles today announced the release of their first official ringtones, available exclusively through the iTunes Store.

Beginning today, fans around the world can, for the first time, purchase ringtones for the Beatles’ 27 UK and US #1 hits, exclusively on iTunes.

The 30-second ringtones are priced at $1.29 each, and the full list of available ringtones includes: “Love Me Do”, “From Me to You”, “She Loves You”, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “I Feel Fine”, “Eight Days a Week”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Help!”, “Yesterday”, “Day Tripper”, “We Can Work It Out”, “Paperback Writer”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Penny Lane”, “All You Need Is Love”, “Hello, Goodbye”, “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude”, “Get Back”, “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, “Something”, “Come Together”, “Let It Be”, and “The Long and Winding Road”.

Apple and The Beatles have an extensive history together, dating back to disputes over the Apple name that The Beatles have long used for their business ventures. As Apple moved into the music business, the two sides came into conflict over the trademark, eventually leading to a 2007 agreement that saw Apple obtain all rights to the trademark and license it back to The Beatles for their specific uses.

Following the November 2010 addition of The Beatles to the iTunes Store, Apple has prominently featured the band’s music at times. The Beatles published an exclusive free animated e-book of Yellow Submarine on the iBookstore last year, and Apple accompanied that release with a dedicated television commercial of its own focusing on The Beatles.

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$16,000 Worth of iPhones Stolen from Charlotte Apple Store in Apparent Inside Job

Eric Slivka — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:24:31 +0000

The Charlotte Observer reports that a total of 25 iPhones valued at over $16,000 have been reported stolen from Apple’s Northlake Mall retail store in Charlotte, North Carolina. While smash-and-grab robberies are not terribly unusual at Apple retail stores, this case has an unusual twist in that the suspect appears to have been an employee of the store.

“The iPhones were stolen from the Genius Room located inside of the store,” a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report says. “The suspect did have access to the Genius Room.”

The stolen phones, which are valued at $16,425, include 22 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S models, one 64-GB 4S model, one eight-GB iPhone 4 model and one 32-GB 4S model.

Charlotte’s WBTV confirms that the suspect was a store employee and that the 25 phones were stolen over a period of time between December 1 and January 11. Police are reportedly searching for the suspect.

Apple’s Northlake Mall retail store is one of two in the Charlotte area, having just opened last August.

Nightline’s Look into Apple’s Foxconn Factories

Arnold Kim — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:29:16 +0000

ABC aired their Nightline special tonight where they took an inside look at Apple’s Foxconn factories. Apple allowed Nightline access to the Foxconn factories that produce iPhones and iPads. Foxconn is the world’s largest electronics manufacturing company that has contracts with most major U.S. electronics companies. The full video is not available online at this time.

Overall, the report held no real surprises. They summarized many of the events leading up to the bad press surrounding Foxconn’s working conditions. The cluster of suicides was mentioned over the past few years that led to the installation of suicide netting to discourage impulsive suicide attempts. Nightline did note that the suicide rate at Foxconn was still below the Chinese national average. Tim Cook, then Apple’s COO, flew to China during that time to help coordinate the response. Beyond the suicide netting, pay was increased and counseling offices were set up.

Work on the factory line is described as monotonous with 12 hour shifts with two hour long meal breaks. When questioned, workers complained about cramped dorms and low pay, but the jobs were in high demand with thousands coming to Foxconn for work. Nightline traveled to a nearby village to compare those living conditions which didn’t seem any better. The families who remained in the village told Nightline that their living conditions were better with the “young people” working in the factories.

The Verge compiled some interesting statistics from the report:

- It takes 141 steps to make an iPhone, and the devices are essentially all handmade

- It takes five days and 325 hands to make a single iPad

- Foxconn workers pay for their own food — about $.70 per meal, and work 12 hour shifts

- Workers who live in the dorms sleep six to eight a room, and pay $17.50 a month to do so

- Workers make $1.78 an hour

Nightline’s visit coordinated with Fair Labor Association who is compiling their own report on the factories.

Overall, the report was fair-to-positive making it seem like Apple was being very responsive to the concerns.

Update: Video of the segment is now available to U.S. viewers through ABC’s website.

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Apple Confirms Plans for Another Large Data Center in Prineville, Oregon

Arnold Kim — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:16:17 +0000

KTVZ.com has received confirmation from Apple that the company plans to build a new data center on a 160-acre lot in Prineville, Oregon. The land was reportedly purchased for $5.6 million from Crook County. A February 15th filing first identified Apple, Inc. as the purchaser of the land, which Apple later confirmed:

Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet confirmed Tuesday that “we purchased the land and it’s for a data center,” but could not speak to details beyond that, other than to say it will be a “green” facility.

Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Oregon

Word of the possibility of a new Apple data center in Oregon was first reported in December when it was revealed that Apple was in discussions over the location. The new data center would be near a recently opened Facebook data center in the same area.

Apple has been working hard to expand its data center capacity to handle iCloud and other services, having invested $1 billion in the North Carolina center and revealing a master plan that could see the size of that facility double in the future. Apple also maintains a smaller data center in Newark, California and has been building out minor additional capacity in Santa Clara, California near its corporate headquarters in Cupertino.

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