Apple's iOS 5 battery fix en route (Apple Talk Weekly)
This week brought good news for those affected with lackluster iPhone battery life after upgrading to iOS 5. Help is on the way.Apple copped to the quick drainage problem and said it was working on a fix in the form of a software update that will arrive to users in the "next few weeks."In the meantime, the company pushed out two uncharacteristically quick, nearly back to back betas of iOS 5.0.1 to developers, the software that includes the fix, along with patches to other bugs that were in the initial release of the iOS 5 software. That right there is a good sign we could get the software fix sooner than expected.Read on for a rundown of everything else that happened this week in Apple land.NewsApple gives top execs big bonusesA flurry of new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission posted yesterday show Apple's top executives getting bonuses with big payouts that hinge on them staying with the company through the end of 2016. Most got 150,000 shares, worth a little more than $60 million based on yesterday's closing Apple stock price. Apple's Eddy Cue pulled in another 100,000 shares to go with the bonus he got when he became a senior vice president at the beginning of September. Apple misses iTunes Match launch deadlineApple this week missed the deadline it laid out last month to bring its iTunes Match service to users by the end of October. That's the service that scans your iTunes library and replaces any tracks you've ripped with full-quality copies from Apple's iTunes Music Store, that is if they have a license to it and you're a paid subscriber of the service. Apple followed up this week by releasing a new developer beta of iTunes with the feature enabled. Siri experienced another outage this week.CNETSiri experiences second outageApple's Siri service, the voice assistant feature that's exclusive to the recently launched iPhone 4S, underwent its second major outage this week. The service was down, or otherwise spotty for a little less than three hours on Thursday afternoon, returning to normal without an explanation from Apple. The feature, which turns voice commands into actions on the phone, requires being piped through Apple's servers to work. iPhone 4S arriving in 15 additional countries November 11Later this month, the iPhone 4S will be arriving in 15 more countries including Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Malta, Montenegro, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and South Korea. Preorders for those countries began yesterday.Apple's NYC "cube" reopensApple's highest-profile store in the Big Apple re-opened this week following a nearly five-month construction overhaul. Work on the store, which is one of the most photographed landmarks in New York, began in mid-June. The company tweaked the design of its iconic glass cube "by using larger, seamless pieces of glass." Since opening in 2006, the company's Fifth Avenue location has gone on to become one of the company's busiest and reportedly the most profitable.Apple unveils revamped New York 'Cube' (...See full gallery1 - 4 / 5NextPrevGarageband arrives on iPhones, iPodsApple made its Garageband app for iOS work on iPhones and iPods this week. Previously the software was only available to iPad users. Users get all the same software-based music tools as before, along with a few tweaks like making custom chords, and exporting in uncompressed audio formats. Apple goes after porn domain cybersquattersIn a filing with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Apple this week took aim at seven domain names that use its trademarked term "iPhone." The seven sites lead to Web sites that sell pornography, instead of being related to Apple or Apple products. Apple fought a legal battle with Cisco for the use of the iPhone name, with the two companies reaching a settlement in February 2007.RumorsApple's Mac Pro tower.AppleApple mulling end of life for Mac Pro tower?Apple's line of high-end desktop towers could be more endangered than originally thought. A new report this week claimed that the company is considering shelving what is currently its most expensive product. While Mac hardware sales have grown considerably overall, notebooks eclipsed the company's desktop sales in 2004 and haven't looked shown any signs of receding. Did Apple buy 3D mapping company C3 Technologies?Apple may have bought up 3D mapping company C3 Technologies, a which makes 3D cartography that could replace or augment what is currently available on Apple's iOS products. The company was originally rumored to be purchased by Apple in August, with Apple blog 9to5Mac suggesting this week that the sale was confirmed.Mac OS X 10.8 already in testingEven though Apple's Mac OS X 10.7 came out just a few months ago, it's already testing the next major version. That's according to MacRumors and 9to5Mac, which this week posted logs showing users on OS X 10.8 accessing both sites from nearby Apple's headquarters. Apple overhauling whole product line in 2012?Apple's product line is set to get some big makeovers next year, if a new report is to be believed. Citing sources in "the upstream supply chain," tech news site Digitimes said this week that Apple plans to "overhaul" its iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and iMac during the course of next year. Of note is mention of Apple releasing two--count them two--models of the iPad next year within just a few months of one another.Apple Talk Weekly is a weekly roundup of some of the week's top Apple-related news and rumors. It appears every Saturday morning and is curated by CNET's Apple reporter Josh Lowensohn.
NBC to Apple- Build antipiracy into iTunes
NBC to Apple: Build antipiracy into iTunes
"If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures," Kliavkoff said in an onstage interview at the Ad:Tech conference here. "One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products."Apple's iTunes service has become the largest music retailer in the United States, but relations between Apple and NBC Universal are strained. In 2007, NBC Universal pulled its TV content from iTunes when the two companies disagreed about pricing. Kliavkoff made it clear that he'd like the conduit back, though."We'd love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes," he said, but wouldn't comment on any negotiations. "We have film distribution with iTunes so yes, we do talk to Apple," he said.Price appears still to be a sticking point. NBC Universal sets a wholesale price for content it offers to distributors, and then distributors are free to set the retail price."They can mark up the price and make a profit or use it as a loss leader to get people in the door," Kliavkoff said. "It's really difficult for us to work with any distribution partner who says 'Here's the wholesale price and the retail price,' especially when the price doesn't reflect the full value of the product.""The music industry guys would have something to say about how the pricing has affected their product over the last few years," he added.The Apple-NBC Universal spat has been a game of brinksmanship over which company needs the other more. Analysts at Forrester Research think Apple needs the content more than NBC needs the distribution.NBC Universal, through a 50-50 partnership with NBC and News Corp., has its own mechanism to view entertainment TV shows on the Web: Hulu. However, the site doesn't offer downloads and doesn't support mobile devices, at least today.Hulu is in part an attempt to combat piracy on Google's YouTube, Kliavkoff said."It used to be that at the end of Saturday Night Live, YouTube would have clips up faster. You can fight that all you want, but until you provide a place to go at 1:05 a.m. Eastern time that has the digital short, you won't get anywhere." Now, with Hulu, viewers can get the same content through legitimate channels.YouTube, he added, is a "fantastic promotional vehicle for some of our product," such as trailers. And it's the "market leader for amateur content." But sites like Hulu will change its position for professionally produced video, he predicted."I think that balance will shift a little bit. I think at the end of the day people, more often than now, will want to see professionally produced content," Kliavkoff said.
"If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures," Kliavkoff said in an onstage interview at the Ad:Tech conference here. "One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products."Apple's iTunes service has become the largest music retailer in the United States, but relations between Apple and NBC Universal are strained. In 2007, NBC Universal pulled its TV content from iTunes when the two companies disagreed about pricing. Kliavkoff made it clear that he'd like the conduit back, though."We'd love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes," he said, but wouldn't comment on any negotiations. "We have film distribution with iTunes so yes, we do talk to Apple," he said.Price appears still to be a sticking point. NBC Universal sets a wholesale price for content it offers to distributors, and then distributors are free to set the retail price."They can mark up the price and make a profit or use it as a loss leader to get people in the door," Kliavkoff said. "It's really difficult for us to work with any distribution partner who says 'Here's the wholesale price and the retail price,' especially when the price doesn't reflect the full value of the product.""The music industry guys would have something to say about how the pricing has affected their product over the last few years," he added.The Apple-NBC Universal spat has been a game of brinksmanship over which company needs the other more. Analysts at Forrester Research think Apple needs the content more than NBC needs the distribution.NBC Universal, through a 50-50 partnership with NBC and News Corp., has its own mechanism to view entertainment TV shows on the Web: Hulu. However, the site doesn't offer downloads and doesn't support mobile devices, at least today.Hulu is in part an attempt to combat piracy on Google's YouTube, Kliavkoff said."It used to be that at the end of Saturday Night Live, YouTube would have clips up faster. You can fight that all you want, but until you provide a place to go at 1:05 a.m. Eastern time that has the digital short, you won't get anywhere." Now, with Hulu, viewers can get the same content through legitimate channels.YouTube, he added, is a "fantastic promotional vehicle for some of our product," such as trailers. And it's the "market leader for amateur content." But sites like Hulu will change its position for professionally produced video, he predicted."I think that balance will shift a little bit. I think at the end of the day people, more often than now, will want to see professionally produced content," Kliavkoff said.
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