Seth Weintraub

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We hope you are not sick of early iPhone prototypes just yet, because the monster Apple vs. Samsung trial is kicking off today and another prototype has hit the docket. This time, Apple is releasing images of its “purple” iPhone design from 2005. It actually has some, if not most, of the design elements of the iPhone 4 design, which Samsung accused Apple of lifting from Sony. This one, again, is labeled “iPod”.

The chronological progression below is also posted in the filing (PDF) [via The Verge]:

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Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz asks a question that he already knows is false: Has the iPhone 5 Been Smuggled Out of the Factory Already?

No, it has not. But these manufacturer pages show what a beat up, falling apart next-gen iPhone with slightly off-white components would look like in a cheap case.

Does not make as sexy of a title though, does it?

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According to a 139-page 10K form filed today, Apple is acquiring a 230-employee mobile security company called “AuthenTec” for $356 million. Apple’s $8 per-share offer is at a premium of 58 percent over AuthenTec’s Thursday close of $5.07.

On July 26, 2012, AuthenTec, entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger with Apple, and Bryce Acquisition Corporation, a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent, providing for the merger of Merger Sub into the Company, with the Company surviving the Merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent. The Merger Agreement was unanimously approved by the Company’s Board of Directors.

The company owns 200 patents covering fingerprint sensors and sensor packaging, software, and end use. AuthenTec makes a variety of security tools, including a number of fingerprint scanners like the ones on the Motorola Atrix phone sold by AT&T, and it is responsible for the security behind the HBO Go app. The products range from secure networking and content and data protection to access control and fingerprint security on PCs and mobile.

Apple could use Authentec’s products in wallet applications, or just as a secure authentication mechanism for future products, which many businesses demand.

Just last week, AuthenTec entered an agreement with Samsung to implement secure VPNs for its Android hardware. (more on that at 9to5Google) Whoops.

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A quick Reuters report on an unsealed document in the Apple-Samsung trial reveals that iPhones are much more of a profit driver for Apple than its iPads. To the tune of double (!) per unit.

Apple Inc earned gross margins of 49 to 58 percent for U.S. iPhone sales between April 2010 and the end of March 2012…Apple had gross margins of 23 to 32 percent on U.S. iPad sales, the filing said.

That means Apple makes as much money on one iPhone as it does on two iPads (considering they cost roughly the same amount).

Who likes phone subsidies? Apple likes phone subsidies!

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Image CNET

Update: The Google Earth iOS app has now been updated to version 7.0.0 with the expected 3D imagery and Tour Guide feature.

What’s New in Version 7.0.0

• Tour guide: Explore places you never thought to search for with new tours of your favorite cities, historic landmarks and natural wonders.
• 3D imagery: Take flight above entire cities in 3D. Get started with Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Geneva or Rome and look for new additions in the coming weeks. Available for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 or later.

About 12 percent of 9to5Mac readers are now on iOS 6 with Apple’s in-house 3D Maps. The larger population of iOS users, however, can only get a fix of 3D maps by heading to Google Earth, which today gets an update to 3D maps, according to CNET. The 3D maps for iOS were formerly announced at Google I/O last month, and it appears the feature will go live today.

Just like iOS Maps, the 3D stuff only works on recent hardware like the iPhone 4S and the second- and third-gen iPads. Meanwhile, 3D was enabled on Android Maps at Google I/O.

iOS users are getting those same 14 regions, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and others. As Google adds more 3D cities to its database, both those platforms will get them at same time.

So just how soon will Google get some more 3D cities in its repertoire? It’s in the works says Peter Birch, a product manager on Google’s geo team.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Douyfa7l8&feature=player_embedded]

“By the end of this year, we’re targeting getting coverage for 300 million people, and that’s really just this year,” Birch said in an interview with CNET. “We’re looking to add and expand to that.”

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The U.S. carrier had an overall bad quarter with a significant $1.5 billion loss, but it continues to sell iPhones at a 1.5M /clip. Solid clip. While its U.S. carrier competitors both saw iPhone activations decline from the previous quarter, Sprint actually stayed stable, and, in doing so, made some progress in catching both AT&T and Verizon. Some of that big quarter loss was attributed to paying upfront for iPhones, but clearly Sprint is not in good shape all around.

The quarterly year-over-year increase in net subsidy is primarily due to the launch of the iPhone, which on average carries a higher subsidy rate per handset as compared to other handsets. The sequential decline in net subsidy is primarily due to lower postpaid and prepaid gross additions…

Quarterly year-over-year increases in sales expenses were offset by reductions in customer care and marketing expenses. Sales expenses increased year-over-year primarily due to iPhone point-of-sale discounts (subsidy) for devices directly sold by the manufacturer to indirect dealers in which Sprint does not take device title…

Sprint’s prepaid subsidy, Virgin Mobile, began selling the iPhone this quarter without subsidy. It is not clear how many pre-paid customers signed up for $650 iPhone—even though the $30/month unlimited data rate is the best in the U.S.

Sprint’s Virgin Mobile USA brand began offering the iPhone to prepaid customers. Virgin Mobile also launched HTC EVO™ V 4G and Boost Mobile launched HTC EVO Design 4G™ bringing the combination of 4G WiMax and the award-winning EVO family of devices to prepaid customers.

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Tekserve, our favorite third-party Apple retailer in New York City, updated its Macs across the board to Mountain Lion and tallied the times it took across the line. The results, above, may help you when budgeting an upgrade time for Mountain Lion (or when deciding to get an SSD).

If you have an SSD, you might have just enough time to grab a coffee.

Update:

[tweet https://twitter.com/macminicolo/status/228196089491238912]

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Apple will not offer a USB or Optical Disk external installer to Mountain Lion (as far as we have heard). That does not mean you cannot sneaker net the install around your home, office or lab like Apple Store employees do (sometimes). Lion Diskmaker has been updated to allow you to make a bootable USB or SD Card installer on a 8GB piece of media.

The process is straightforward:

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As Apple previously announced during its Q3 2012 earnings call yesterday, Mountain Lion is officially available for download in the Mac App Store for $19.99. The download is exclusive to the Mac App Store this year, as we mentioned before, because Apple will not sell the OS via USB sticks or optical discs. The $20 price tag is a $10 drop from Lion, however, and the single purchase will is good for up to five macs via the Mac App Stores purchased apps feature.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnJrkai6Eek]

Unfortunately, for those planning to try Mountain Lion in an Apple retail store before upgrading, we reported last night that some Apple Stores had issues getting the OS on in-store demo Macs. There are also many users reporting error messages when trying to download from Apple’s servers. Before you make the switch to 10.8, you might want to check out the list of compatible Mountain Lion apps to make sure you will not run into any problems.

Apple’s full press release is below:

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Broadcom just announced its next round of portable device wireless chip, the BCM4335, which includes the ability to connect to the superfast 802.11ac networks. Apple exclusively uses Broadcom chips in this family for its iOS devices (and a different family for its Macs). The current iPad and iPhone use the Broadcom BCM4330 802.11a/b/g/n baseband/radio with integrated Bluetooth 4.0+HS and an FM transceiver—and the xxx5 is just a minor step up.

We found some code that indicates the next iPhone will use the Broadcom BCM4334, which adds the 40nm process and Wi-Fi Direct capabilities (perhaps opening some Airdrop capabilities too).

The 40nm chip will continue to deliver Bluetooth 4.0 and FM, but its 802.11ac networking could save some power using the new standard. It also features the “industry’s most advanced idle power consumption performance, which significantly extends a mobile device’s battery life.”

Sample chips are already available with a full production expected to be delivered in Q1 2013, just in time for next year’s iPads.

The press release follows:
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AT&T just released its quarterly numbers, and the company’s smartphone sales are still completely dominated by the iPhone. The company activated 3.7 million iPhones for the quarter, which represents 73 percent of all the smartphones sold (if each is taken as a new iPhone sold – there is likely a negligible difference). Additionally, 22 percent of the new iPhones sold were to new AT&T customers.

Strong Smartphone Sales Continue. AT&T sold 5.1 million smartphones in the second quarter. Smartphones represented 77 percent of postpaid device sales. At the end of the quarter, 61.9 percent, or 43.1 million, of AT&T’s postpaid subscribers had smartphones, up from 49.9 percent, or 34.1 million, a year earlier. AT&T’s ARPU for smartphones is twice that of non-smartphone subscribers, and about 88 percent of smartphone subscribers are on FamilyTalk^® or business plans. Churn levels for these subscribers are significantly lower than for other postpaid subscribers. More than one-third of AT&T’s postpaid smartphone customers use a 4G-capable device.

Android, iPhone and Windows device sales were supported by AT&T’s 4G network. Only AT&T’s 4G network lets iPhone 4S download three-times faster than any other U.S. carrier’s network. In the quarter, the company activated 3.7 million iPhones, with 22 percent new to AT&T.

The percentage would represent a slight downturn for AT&T over last quarter, where iPhone represented around 78 percent of smartphone activations with 4.3 million cumulative. The number is also up slightly over the year ago. AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones in Q2 2011. Note: Sprint did not sell iPhones at the time.

Perhaps most interestingly, with AT&T’s Smartphone numbers at 77% and  iPhones representing 73% of that, iPhones, over a half year after launch, still represent over 55% of AT&T’s total Phone sales. AT&T is truly dependent on Apple.

We will cover Apple’s quarterly announcement later today, where we will get total device numbers across Apple’s line of products.

AT&T

A few months before Apple is set to release a 7.85-inch tablet of its own, it convinced a German court to ban Samsung’s similar-sized, year-old offering based on the look and feel of the 10-inch iPad. The ban would extend to the entire 27-member states of the European Union should it hold. Strangely, the same court decided that an iPad-sized 10.1N variety of the Galaxy Tab, which was just a 10.1 with a superficial makeover, should not be banned.

Samsung was both happy…

“Samsung welcomes the court’s ruling which confirms our position that the GALAXY Tab 10.1N does not infringe Apple’s intellectual property and does not infringe laws against unfair competition. Should Apple continue to make legal claims based on such a generic design patent, design innovation and progress in the industry could be restricted.”

and sad…

“Samsung is disappointed with the court’s ruling. We will continue to take all available measures, including legal action, to protect our intellectual property rights and defend against Apple’s claims to ensure our products remain available to consumers throughout the European Union.”

on the news.

In more Apple-Samsung patent dispute news, according to FOSS Patents, Apple filed to seek $2.5 billion in damages from Samsung for infringing on its patents. About $2 million of that sum is just for design patents.

The Cupertino, Calif., -based Company apparently used its own analysis to detail how Samsung’s patrons will shell out up to $100 more for a device that boast Apple-patented features. It even detailed the value of those features. For instance, the “scrolling API” feature is worth $3.10.

Go to FOSS Patents for more information on Apple’s latest filing.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z714Fnylf5s]

This is the fourth ad in Apple’s line of popular Siri commercials. Martin Scorsese (via MacRumors) follows Samuel L. Jackson, Zooey Deschanel, and a pair of stinkers with John Malkovich. Scorsese is found in his natural environment—on the streets of Manhattan in the back of a cab. I believe this is the first time Find My Friends has been used in a commercial, but do not quote me.

Update: Redditor begotabu points out that the cab number of the taxi is the same as Travis Bickle’s in the Scoresese classic Taxi Driver. Ha!

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Since the first credible rumors of a 7.85-inch iPad started surfacing last October, we have been trying to wrap our heads around what is coming. Beyond what is already reported, our sources haven’t had much to say…yet.

But that gives us some time for some broad Mini iPad speculation:

A 7.85-inch iPad with a 3:4 screen ratio is not the same thing as a 7-inch 16:10 Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire. For better or worse, it is much bigger. Take these drawings from @trojankitten that were popular a few weeks ago:

Better, of course, being more screen real estate. While that will not help much for video content, which is generally in the 16:9 format, web pages will look better, Maps will be bigger, and, perhaps most importantly, books will be easier to read. Worse is that it is going to be much harder to fit in your pocket. In fact, as tight as the Nexus 7 is in those skinny jeans and purses, I am going to go ahead and say this form factory will be close to impossible to fit in pants pockets. So, forget that.

So, what is this thing good for?

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Although Apple’s iCloud System Status thinks all is good, clearly not all is well in Maiden. We received a load of tips over the past day or so claiming iMessages are randomly not going through, people are not able to sign in (“activation issues”), and messages are randomly deleting. Others are not having any issues (or are not aware of any). Here are just a few of our readers’ responses:

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Multiple tipsters wrote in this evening saying 20th Century Fox movies are appearing in their purchased movie iTunes accounts ready for re-downloading over iCloud. Sure enough, Fox’s Horton Hears a Who! is on my kid’s iTunes account ready for downloading on iCloud (above, left). There is also no longer a disclaimer saying, “This movie is not available for iCloud downloading,” in iTunes (above, right) which existed before.

When Apple launched Movies in Cloud in March, both Fox and Universal held out. Universal went live on iCloud in April, and it appears Fox is going live today. The deal has been expected for awhile, as HBO allowed iCloud users access to both studios’ catalogs in March. The reasons for the delay aren’t specified but they often involve complicated contract negotiations with multiple rights holders.

Today has been a big day on the iTunes Store with Poland and Hungary both getting iTunes Match, while 37 different countries got iTunes in the Cloud for movies.

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Verizon announced its quarterly earnings today (slides), which saw the company decrease its iPhone subscribers to 2.7 million iPhones, and 45 percent of Verizon’s smartphones from the holiday quarter of 4.3-million (55 percent of Verizon’s smartphones) and last quarter of 3.2 million (50 percent of Verizon’s smartphones). The number drop is cyclical as Apple approaches a hardware refresh and will probably be down even more in the current quarter…as expected.

The year-ago quarter saw Verizon activate 2.4 million iPhones. Verizon is said to be pushing its 4G network—which gives more attention to tablets like the new iPad and Android phones as well.

Notice the pattern from previous quarters:

The full release follows:
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