Filed under: Apple

Last night, Bloomberg TV presented an episode of the Bloomberg Game Changers documentary series highlighting the life and career of Steve Jobs. The show included interviews with Jobs' friends, former colleagues, and business associates, and detailed his styles of leadership, management, and creative process.

The show is now available for viewing online, or you can watch it tonight (October 15) at 9 PM and 11 PM EDT on Bloomberg TV. Selected highlights from the show are also available on YouTube:

• Bloomberg Game Changers - Intro
• Bloomberg Game Changers - John Scully Interview
• Bloomberg Game Changers - Jobs returns to Apple
• Bloomberg Game Changers - The genius of the iPod & iTunes

This is the downside of being Apple -- just as they get prices and costs to where they want them, those same prices and costs tend to go up again. Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai has reported that it will raise its manufacturing prices in China, directly affecting Apple's and other companies' costs over there. The company is reportedly trying to push profits up for the last quarter of this year, and aims to raise sales by as much as 30% next year.

Of course, this probably isn't a surprise for Apple -- given how closely the company researches and follows component costs, this is likely something already baked in to their strategy (and even if it's not, $40 billion in cash tends to help out with unseen charges). But it's a clear reminder that costs aren't fixed for these devices at all -- just because Apple secures pricing on one processor or screen doesn't mean they'll have that same opportunity next year. It shows you a little bit of just how difficult it is to do what Apple has done, and coordinate all of these parts and companies to make a great product at a salable price.

Apple has announced that the MobileMe Calendar web app is now officially out, leaving beta and becoming available to all MobileMe customers. The service allows you to check or update your MobileMe calendar from any computer or iOS device, share or publish calendars out to friends, family, or coworkers, and even send invitations straight from the calendar for upcoming events.

If you're already using the beta, of course, you don't have to do anything at all, but other MobileMe members can sign in to me.com/calendar, and click "Upgrade Now" in the lower left. There's nothing super new here (there are certainly lots of other ways to do these kinds of things using MobileMe and other free services), but having what was previously in beta open to all customers is a nice benefit.

[via MacRumors]

In an unprecedented interview, former Apple CEO John Sculley discusses his relationship, past and present, with Steve Jobs. Initially pulled from Pepsi Co. by Steve Jobs in 1983, Sculley ran Apple with Jobs until Jobs was ousted in 1985. Sculley then ran Apple as the sole CEO until 1993.

In the interview with Cult of Mac, Sculley notes that he isn't in contact with Jobs anymore, and he considers his time at Apple "ancient history." Still, Sculley went on to describe what he called Steve's methodology for building great products, which includes:

• Beautiful design (no surprises there)
• Customer experience
• Perfectionism
• Minimalism

Again, there's not a surprise among the bunch, and John elaborates on these and other aspects of Steve's drive in the full interview. Sculley also goes on to note that it was "...a mistake" to make him CEO: "Looking back, it was a big mistake that I was ever hired as CEO. I was not the first choice that Steve wanted to be the CEO. He was the first choice, but the board wasn't prepared to make him CEO when he was 25, 26 years old."

The whole interview is broken into several parts, starting here. It's candid and, as we said, unprecedented. Go and read it for a unique look at a significant figure in Apple history.

According to IDC, Apple's PC market share (those are Macs, or Macintoshes as we old-timers call them) is now at 10.6 percent, nudging Acer from the number three spot in the US. As Engadget reports, "Two million Mac shipments during the period represented an increase of 24.1 percent relative to last year, while the overall PC market turned in a somewhat morose 3.8 percent growth." Bear in mind that Fortune suggested this week that Apple may ship four million Macs in Q4. That's exuberant growth for a platform some called dead a decade ago.

Gartner released numbers showing Acer was still barely in the third spot, but either way, what you're seeing is Mac growth outpacing other PCs by healthy margins. The profit margins for each Mac, likely the best in the business, are helping line Apple's coffers as well. While HP still holds a comfy lead at the top, I'd say they are lucky to sell in volume -- there's little doubt that Apple makes more per Mac sold.

This is good news for all Apple fans, although one wonders if increasing market share will lead to more attacks by malware developers. Apple has always compared their market share to BMW and Mercedes, so I don't see them worrying about being number one any time soon. At least not while they still have a commanding lead in MP3 players and a sizable chunk of the smartphone market.

This weekend Apple will open up its 305th retail store in the St. Louis Galleria mall, right there at Brentwood and 40-64 (which I heard finally finished construction recently). Saturday is day one, and the store should be open at 9am, so if you want to be around for the festivities (including the t-shirts and the hoopla), make plans for this Saturday morning.

I'm kind of surprised the Galleria didn't have an Apple Store yet -- the only other one in St. Louis is down at the West County Mall, but I'd have expected to see one in Chesterfield, or maybe out in St. Charles somewhere. The Galleria is a good choice, though -- upscale and central, exactly where Apple wants to be. As always, if you head out to the opening and take pictures, be sure to send them along to us, we'd love to see them.

Update: Oh, well that shows how long it's been since I've visited St. Louis. There is a store in the Galleria already, but according to our commenters, it's a mini-store, and this opening on Saturday will be a full retail opening in another location in the mall. So there you go -- still an opening, but not completely new. That explains my confusion -- I thought the Galleria would have had a store by now, and it did.

Ever the kid-friendly outfit, Apple filed a patent in 2008 that aims to make text messaging safer for the children. TechCrunch reports that today, the US Patent and Trademark office awarded Apple a patent which puts a ban on sending obscene text messages sometimes called "sexting."

The technology will prevent an "administered device" -- such as an iPhone, maybe? -- from sending or receiving objectionable messages. The overall strictness of the filter is determined by the administrator of the device and would include settings by age or grade level.

In addition to offensive language filtering, the technology includes a method for requiring users to communicate in a specific language. For example, a specified number of foreign-language words could be required for each outbound message. This is an interesting tool for anyone, including children, trying to learn another language.

Even though this patent was filed in 2008, its promises have yet to be fulfilled. It is not uncommon for Apple to file patents for technology (hardware or software) on which they are currently working. Sometimes these patents result in cool new products or features and sometimes not.

Whether this technology ends up in iOS 5, or some other Apple product, remains unclear. What is certain, is that if it is implemented, it won't take long for people to start hunting for ways to communicate that the device won't be able to filter.

[via CNN]

Have you noticed that since mid-2007, a lot of other phone manufacturers have come out with multi-touch displays that are all but identical to those on the iPhone? I certainly noticed, and it made me wonder if Steve Jobs's January 2007 claim regarding multi-touch, "Boy have we patented it," was just an idle threat.

As it turns out, Jobs's claim was just a few years early. Patently Apple reports that, as of yesterday, Apple has been awarded three very important multi-touch related patents. The first patent, "Portable Electronic Device with Multi-Touch Input," describes in detail the multi-touch input method present on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple's multi-touch trackpads. It also sounds remarkably similar to the input methods present on competitors' touchscreen smartphones.

The second patent, "Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces," is similar to another patent that Apple filed last year. It describes multiple input methods that all iOS device users will recognize: typing, pointing, scrolling, object manipulation, and so forth. The third patent, "Simultaneous Sensing Arrangement," describes some of the sensing mechanisms present in multi-touch devices. Patently Apple has the full details on the patents if you're truly curious, but they basically represent patents for both the hardware and input methods behind multi-touch.

Patents are an unusually touchy subject, particularly when lawsuits over them are involved. Apple's initial lawsuit against HTC earlier this year sparked a firestorm of Internet rage, with many commentators complaining that Apple was engaged in anti-competitive practices and attempting to stifle innovation. That's certainly one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it would be to look at something like Marco Arment's smartphone retrospective and recognize that other manufacturers have achieved success in the smartphone market over the past few years only by copying features that Apple innovated, like multi-touch. And regardless of whether you agree with the phrase "Apple innovated multi-touch" or not, that's now what the record shows: Apple now explicitly owns the patents for multi-touch. Frankly, I'll be shocked if Apple doesn't sic its patent lawyers on the likes of HTC and other manufacturers over multi-touch now.

Motorola is the latest company to file a patent lawsuit against Apple, suggesting in court that Apple has infringed on proprietary Motorola technologies in its mobile devices. Motorola itself filed papers about 18 different infringements. Its subsidiary Motorola Mobility Inc filed three more, as well as a trade complaint regarding technologies including a system to distribute message traffic and various systems like that.

Truth be told, this is all pretty esoteric -- Microsoft just recently sued Motorola for the same type of thing, and technology patents are often so vague and far-reaching that I suspect none of this is ever meant to actually reach court. Apple's lawyers will determine what the settlement should be (and Apple will probably pay it), and Motorola might even use that money to pay off Microsoft. It's possible that this could blow up into a bigger argument (depending on what Motorola wants to get out of this), but at this point, it all just seems more like corporate posturing than anything else.

So instead, let's all take this time to remember Motorola and Apple's disastrous collaboration, the Rokr, and what a mess all of that was. Man, it's hard to believe just how terrible cell phones were before the iPhone came along.

[via Slashdot]

Fortune is suggesting that Apple could have sold as many as four million Macs this quarter, which would be pretty astounding. PC sales in general have been down lately, but the Mac seems to be immune, still selling like hotcakes. Hitting the four million mark in the last quarter of 2010 would be a record for Mac sales, and that's huge, especially when most of the focus on Apple (even from the company) has been on "mobile devices."

In fact, Fortune suggests that those devices may have had an effect on the numbers -- customers coming in to the stores to look at or buy iPhones and iPads may have walked out with either new Macs, or just a better impression of the computers. Back-to-school sales were also very important for the company, and that late July refresh didn't hurt either.

Even if Apple didn't break the 4m mark, it's very likely that this will be an outstanding year for Apple's desktop and laptop sales anyway. We'll know more next week -- Apple's 4th quarter earnings call takes place on the 18th, and we'll be listening live to see what they say.

Edit: A previous version of this post cited 4m as the total for 2010. It's only the total for the 4th quarter of this financial year.

In a recent interview with Drowned in Sound, former Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor discussed the Social Network soundtrack and exactly why Mark Zuckerberg is no Steve Jobs.

Reznor is currently promoting the soundtrack he recorded for The Social Network, otherwise known as "the Facebook movie." In the interview, Trent describes why he's not a fan of Facebook; specifically, the license that it and similar services seem to give users to exaggerate themselves, saying, "I've seen that with people I know in real life, and I check them out online, it's not always the same person."

He also goes on to describe the media's current fascination with Zuckerberg and compares it to another famous tech company CEO: "When I see the media heralding Zuckerberg, putting him up on a pedestal of genius and mentioned in the same breathe as Steve Jobs, I'm highly degree [sic] with that. He was in the right place, at the right time, with a functional tool."

Reznor has long been an Apple fan. Five years ago, he released the Nine Inch Nails songs The Hand That Feeds and Only as GarageBand files, and he's used Apple software to record both music and recent tours. However, he went on a tirade when the Nine Inch Nails app was ejected from the App Store in 2009.

Apple has published official Ping usage guidelines for artists which describe exactly how to create an artist profile and begin posting content.

According to the guidelines [PDF], artists are encouraged to hold off on creating a profile until they have several posts ready to go, because "Fans will be far more likely to follow you if they can tell that your profile is active." I agree with Apple there. Additionally, artists are encouraged to submit videos (2GB max), as long as they're in .mov, .m4v or .mp4 formats. Apple also suggests that artists create videos with iPhones whenever possible.

Apple also lists what's not allowed on an artist profile, including "...pornography, hate speech, racism, nudity or drug use."

Most of the artists I follow are relatively quiet, with notable exceptions like Jack Johnson. Some users have panned Ping, but I've found the 10.0.1 iTunes update to make it much more enjoyable.

Our intrepid Kiwi reporter, Chris Rawson, recently told TUAW readers about a mysterious bug that hit his iPhone on the morning of September 25th when New Zealand switched to Daylight Saving Time. iOS users in Australian time zones that follow Daylight Saving Time had a similarly rude awakening on the morning of October 3rd when recurring alarms in the iOS Alarm Clock app went off an hour early.

What's happening? There's a bug in the Alarm Clock app that has been affecting users when a change to DST occurs. Other iOS users in Queensland, Austraila also reported that their alarm clocks adjusted to the Daylight Saving Time change on the 3rd, despite the fact that they're not in a DST zone.

There are workarounds available -- users can set the alarm for one hour after the time they actually want to wake up, or they can turn off the recurring alarm and set a non-recurring alarm every day.

Apple Australia apparently told ZDNet Australian Edition that they were aware of the problem and have developed a fix that will be included as part of an upcoming software update. It's expected that the update will appear before daylight saving time changes happen in other parts of the world, including November 6th (USA) and October 30th (EU). That means that we may see another interim iOS release prior to the expected arrival of iOS 4.2 in late November.

[via AppleInsider]

Are we tired of all the rumors around a 4G Verizon iPhone yet? First it's off, then it's on, and now it's off again. TechCrunch's Steve Cheney claims he's heard from sources that Apple won't support the 4G/LTE cell network in 2011, which means that we won't see a 4G iPhone next year. Cheney claims Apple is going to wait on the standard, and instead implement a dual-mode GSM and CDMA iPhone sometime in 2011.

That still leaves the possibility of other carriers open, though, and it does corroborate what we've heard from the Wall Street Journal, which said a while back that Apple would bring a CDMA-enabled iPhone out on Verizon's network. Honestly, at this point, it's all just a blur -- we've heard rumors for almost years now that Apple would release an iPhone on one technology or another, and to date, there are no (non-jailbroken) iPhones in the US that run on anything but AT&T's 3G network.

As with all of this stuff, nothing is legit until we see Steve actually holding it up there on stage.