Carl Icahn buys additional 2.8 million Apple stock

Apple’s long standing investor Carl Icahn has just bought 2.8 million shares at Apple worth close to $1.7 billion, bringing his total value in the company to $4.5 billion. He now owns a total of 7.5 million shares in Apple, making him one of the largest share holders in the company.

Apple only recently announced its plans to bring a 7:1 stock split in June which will give back shareholders $130 billion as part of its capital returns program. The company also announced the increase of its share repurchase authorization costs to $90 billion from $60 billion.

Apple repurchased $14 billion worth of its stock in January, which is something Icahn has been urging Apple to do following several meetings with the company’s top brass.

Icahn was clearly pleased with this news which has now led to him buying more stock in the company. He claimed that the stock remains “meaningfully undervalued” and that “many analysts fail to understand the company”.

In addition to increasing his stock in Apple, Icahn also disclosed his stock with eBay while decreasing his stake in Netflix. You can find the complete list of Icahn’s stock purchases in the SEC link below.

[SEC via WSJ]

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Apple granted patent that prevents you from sending embarrassing messages to the wrong person

Apple has been granted a new patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office called “Generation of a user interface based on contacts”, which reveals the company is working on a user interface that dynamically changes its background based on who you’re talking to in Messaging applications.

The patent explains how the background of apps like Messages app can be replaced with the image associated with the contact while the user is in a conversation. If an image is not associated with a contact then the system would generate a default male or female image based on the contact information. The background image could be dimmed or alpha-blended with a background color to ensure that it does not impact the readability of messages. This could prevent a user from sending embarrassing messages to the wrong person while chatting with multiple people at once.

The patent also explains how this can be implemented in case of both single and group conversations.  As seen below, in case of group messaging, the background image of the contact who last sent the message could be highlighted by greying out others.

 

The patent also describes other methods such as showing contact thumbnails in a Cover Flow, rotating carousel or contact cards with animated transitions.

It remains to be seen if Apple will include this feature in iOS 8. It is an interesting concept. Let me know what you think in the comments.

[USPTO via AppleInsider]

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Apple acknowledges iMessage issue that hijacks your number when switching to Android

The Messages iOS app ties your phone number to your Apple ID, and ensures that people sending texts to your number arrive over iMessage, a free service, rather than SMSes through carriers, which is paid. This is great for all iPhone users, unless you happen to switch to an Android or Windows Phone.

Even after switching to a different platform, the Messages app on your friends’ iPhone continues to think that you still have an iPhone, and texts they send are delivered over iMessage, which means that you won’t see these texts on your Android phone. Moreover, the messages show up with a “Delivered” status on the sender’s iPhone, so they won’t even come to know that these messages aren’t going through.

Adam Pash, formerly of Lifehacker, had the same problem. He spoke to Apple tech support about this issue, and found that a lot of users are facing the same problem, but Apple doesn’t have a clear solution:

[Apple tech support] called me back, then explained

1. This is a problem a lot of people are facing.






2. The engineering team is working on it but is apparently clueless as to how to fix it.






3. There are no reliable solutions right now — for some people the standard fixes work immediately; many others are in my boat.

One of the solutions to this problem is removing your iPhone from My Support Profile (instructions), but this hasn’t helped Pash solve the issue. Other solutions include resetting the Apple ID password, logging out of FaceTime and iMessage from all iOS devices, but these haven’t helped Pash either.

Apple is probably not doing this intentionally, but for a user, this acts like a lock-in, and makes it very difficult to switch from an iPhone, given that there’s no easy way to fix this issue or let people know that you’re no longer on iMessage.

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Here’s How Apple can transition to a ‘3x’ iPhone 6 with 1704×960 Resolution Display

A report from earlier today claims that the iPhone 6 will feature a 1704×960 resolution display with a much higher pixel density. The 1704×960 display resolution is thrice the base resolution (568 x 320 pixels), and the transition to a 3x screen resolution from the current 2x Retina displays would be quite smooth.

Just like the non-Retina to Retina transition, the 2x to 3x transition would involve a proportional scaling up of image assets in unoptimised apps, and would require developers to issue updates to their apps to supply @3x image assets as well.

A MacRumors forum poster visually explained that scaling up 2x image assets for the 3x iPhone 6 display would look much better than what 1x assets scaled up to 2x looked like.

From the forums:

Keep in mind however that unlike with the @1x -> @2x transition we had in 2010, this time we’d only have a 50% enlargement rather than 100%. 

The thing is, a 50% enlargement with interpolation doesn’t look worse than a 100% enlargement with pixel-doubling, despite the loss of details due to the interpolation. [...] 

As you can see, older non-@3x-optimized apps would actually look better on an @3x iPhone than non-@2x-opitmized apps did on an @2x iPhone. Add to this the fact that the screen’s pixel density would be higher this time around, and the perceived image quality difference would be even smaller.

iOS 8 will presumably automatically handle optimising system-drawn elements like text, vector icons, etc., for the higher-resolution screen, so that it looks sharp and crisp. This optimising will be done without developers having to update their apps.

9to5Mac notes:

Sources say that core user interface elements, from iOS functions like the Home screen, Notification Center, and Settings panels, will simply appear like larger versions of those functions on the current iPhone display. However, sources also say it is likely that developers and Apple itself will be able to optimize some applications to better utilize the larger screen area. It is possible Apple could revamp the Home screen and other functions between now and this fall’s launch.

To see how the existing iPhone interface would scale up, 9to5Mac tweaked the iOS Simulator to run at 3x mode.

Here’s how the home screen would look on the higher resolution iPhone 6 display. As you can see, the number of apps in the home screen grid remains the same, but their size increases.

Similarly, here’s how the Notification Center would look on the larger screen. Since the interface is mostly text, Apple would need to make very few tweaks to get Notification Center ready for the iPhone 6:

The Calendar app on the other hand makes use of image assets for search, add and list buttons, and they will appear pixellated until Apple uses @3x images for the buttons:

Apple’s known to make transitions between new screen sizes, new resolutions as easy as possible for developers, and this @3x approach is the easiest for developers, because apart from providing high-resolution image assets, they won’t have to make any other layout changes for their apps. The transition also ensures that users would get the best experience possible with apps not optimised for 3x mode.

Let us know what you think of Apple’s transition strategy to 3x screen resolution in the comments below.

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Apple restricting vacation time for its Retail Employees in September for iPhone 6 launch

German website iFun.de reports that Apple is looking to restrict vacation days for its German retail employees this September possibly for the launch of iPhone 6.

Apple is likely to restrict vacation days in other countries as well.

Last year, Apple had cut down vacation time for its AppleCare employees between September 15 and September 28 for the launch of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. Apple carrier partners also tend to cut down vacation time for their staff for the launch of the new iPhone.

Apple is widely expected to release two variants of the iPhone 6 this year, which may feature an all-new ultra thin design, narrower bezels and rounded edges. The first variant will have a 4.7 inch display, which could be launched as early as August, followed by the larger 5.5-inch model in September. There are speculations that Apple will also launch its long-rumored iWatch smartwatch alongside the new iPhone.

iPhone 6 is also expected to include Apple’s new A8 processor, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and an improved 8-megapixel camera. The iPhone 6 will also come pre-installed with iOS 8, which may include new apps such as Healthbook, TextEdit and Preview, improved Maps, inter-app communication capabilities and more.

[iFun.de via MacRumors]

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Apple may introduce High Definition audio playback in iOS 8, launch new Lightning cable and In-ear Headphones

We’ve already seen plenty of physical mockups of iPhone 6. We’ve seen it in silver, in gold and space gray, it has been compared to an iPhone 5s to give us an idea of how the larger iPhone will stack up against the 4-inch iPhone, the 5th generation iPod touch to highlight the design similarities and even compared to Samsung’s latest flagship Android phone, the Galaxy S5.  

Folks at 9to5Mac have published a new video, which compares the iPhone 6 physical mockup with latest Android flagships, HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5.

The iPhone 6 physical mockup looks quite similar to the HTC One M8. When HTC launched the HTC One smartphone in 2013, it was considered a close cousin of the iPhone 5 in the looks department. If Apple goes with the all-aluminum back casing then the iPhone 6 will look even more similar to the HTC One (M8). I like the way HTC has handled the cut outs for the antenna bands, and hope Apple takes a similar approach.

The HTC One (M8) and the Galaxy S5 come with 5-inch and 5.1-inch screen respectively will be slightly bigger than the rumored 4.7-inch iPhone 6. Apple is widely expected to unveil iPhone 6 with larger screens this year to compete with Android based smartphones that usually come with larger screens, so it is interesting to get an idea on how it stacks up against the latest Android flagships.

Apple is widely expected to release two variants of the iPhone 6 this year, with an ultra-thin design, narrower bezels, rounded edges and more. The first variant will have a 4.7 inch display, which could be launched as early as August, followed by the larger 5.5-inch model in September.

iPhone 6 is also expected to include Apple’s new A8 processor, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and an improved 8-megapixel camera. The iPhone 6 will also come pre-installed with iOS 8, which may include new apps such as Healthbook, TextEdit and Preview, improved Maps, inter-app communication capabilities and more.

[via 9to5Mac]

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Beats Co-Founders May Be Unveiled as Apple Execs at WWDC

According to people familiar with the matter, Apple may unveil Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre as executives at the company’s June Worldwide Developers Conference. With more evidence popping up every day that Apple will indeed be acquiring the headphone maker and streaming music provider, it would make sense for the company to use WWDC as a stage to welcome Iovine and Dre to the company.

Apple is reportedly closing in on finishing the deal which entails Dre and Iovine selling the Beats brand to Apple for a decent $3.2 billion sum, and its announcement is expected soon. Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre are both expected to assume roles on Apple’s executive board, but there is not yet evidence to confirm that these roles even exist. “One person said Iovine would likely oversee all of Apple’s music strategy and handle relationships with labels and publishers,” writes Billboard.

Apple has felt pressure in relationships with music labels recently as paid iTunes downloads have taken a dip, and some analysts say that Apple’s quick push to acquire Beats represents nervousness about partially missing the music streaming train. Apple’s iTunes still serves as the world’s leading digital music store, but the company has had to propose drastic measures such as exclusive albums for download ahead of streaming services to help remedy continually falling sales numbers.

Notably, if Apple were to give Dr. Dre some stage time at WWDC, it wouldn’t be the first time. Dre, also known as Andre Young, took the stage about 10 years ago via video to personally congratulate Steve Jobs on the launch of the iTunes Store and the iPod. Beyond this, the acquisition is equally as tied to Iovine, who met with Steve Jobs to talk about a music service in 2003, and met with Tim Cook to talk about the Beats streaming service last year.

Reuters reports that the acquisition will be announced at some point within the week, and Apple’s WWDC is set to happen June 2-6. It looks like we’re in for a busy couple of months in many different respects. What do you think about Dr. Dre being in an Apple executive role?

[Billboard]

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Apple looking to further boost Safari JavaScript performance with upgrades to Nitro engine

Apple is working on boosting JavaScript performance in Safari across Mac and iOS, as revealed in recent builds of WebKit, the open source rendering engine Safari is built upon.

The WebKit wiki shows an update to the Nitro JavaScript engine codenamed “FTL JIT” that make Safari’s JavaScript performance much faster than Chrome, and comparable to Firefox. Info World reports:

FTLJIT is still considered experimental, so although it’s being made available in the OS X port of WebKit by default, it’s not actually turned on yet — it has to be enabled through command-line flags.

So far, the speed boosts afforded by FTLJIT vary but are intriguing. AreWeFastYet, the JavaScript testing site founded by Mozilla’s JavaScript team, ran its own benchmarks on 64-bit OS X and found the LLVM-powered build of WebKit to be markedly faster than Chrome on some benchmarks. That said, Firefox running asm.js versions of the same benchmarks still consistently beat WebKit.

While speeding up JavaScript is a technical detail, it has a direct impact on the user experience, as most modern websites today make heavy use of JavaScript for features like dynamic loading of content without page refresh, animating elements on the webpage, etc.

The Nitro JavaScript engine, introduced in 2011 in iOS, improved JavaScript performance by a factor of two, and a combination of the improvements in the engine as well as processor advancement will further contribute to faster performance.

Apple however hasn’t made the Nitro engine available to third-party browsers and in-app web views in apps like Twitter, Facebook etc., so it’s uncertain whether the FTL JIT updates would benefit these browsers or not.

We hope that Apple is working to bring these JavaScript improvements to iPhone and iPad as part of iOS 8.

[via MacRumors]

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