Apple Stores Installing NFC Payment Systems?

According to BGR, several sources have suggested Apple may be gearing up to install new payment systems in its retail stores, quite possibly implementing the NFC technology that’s also been rumored to be one of the key features of the iPhone 5, in spite of recent reports claiming the opposite. The website reports Apple’s POS system (based on iPod touches) recently went offline for an entire day causing employees to not be able to process payments, and new tables (different from the standard ones) with cash wraps have also been installed in some retail locations, leading to speculation as to whether Apple is looking to renew its payment system.

Additionally, we have been told that there were recently multiple “overnights” in Apple retail locations, which required store employees to “assist in installing TBD devices” throughout the stores “as the retail segment of Apple grows.

We have a feeling Apple’s 10th anniversary plans might put a few pieces of the puzzle in place, but one of our sources also believes that NFC payment processing capabilities are among the enhancements that will be brought about by the new gear.

It’s unclear from the report whether Apple is planning on updating their POS technology with NFC to enable compatibility with future devices that will feature the technology on a consumer level, or if retail stores are simply installing new hardware for internal usage, not necessarily implying new iPhones with NFC are on their way. Multiple reports in the past months had pegged Apple was considering NFC for future iPhones and iPads, but recent speculation from different sources has suggested NFC simply isn’t ready for mass adoption, with Apple saving the implementation of Near Field Communication for another generation of devices.

Analyst Claims Production Issues Still Affecting iPad

According to a new research note by FBR analyst Craig Berger relayed by Business Insider, Apple will be unable to meet the internal goal of 40-45 million iPads produced this year. The analyst called the number “out of reach”, and said low touchscreen supplies, component shortages and production issues at Hon Hai’s Foxconn will limit Apple and affect iPad shipments throughout the second and third calendar quarters of 2011.

For the third quarter, he sees production dropping off to 5.2 million units thanks to component shortages and production problems. He also says the effects of the Japanese earthquake could be felt in Q3. But, Berger says that could change if touchscreen supplies improve.

Ahead of the iPad 2 announcement and release in March, reports suggested the device could be delayed until June due to production issues in Foxconn’s facilities. The alleged delay didn’t happen of course, but it’s no secret Apple struggled to meet demand for the new device as also confirmed by COO Tim Cook at the company’s Q2 2011 earnings call, where he said consumer demand had been “staggering” with the iPad 2 heavily back logged at the end of the quarter. He later went on to call the iPad 2 “the mother of backlogs”, with Apple working as fast as they can to get the device in the hands of consumers. Tim Cook also said the Japan earthquake and tsunami would reduce revenue in Q3 by around $200 million, but assured Apple was on track to avoid production issues and shortages for the next quarters.

Separate reports in the past weeks noted display and speaker production issues affected iPad production in the last quarter. The iPad 2 is available on Apple’s online store, with waiting times of 1-2 weeks in most international stores.

Samsung and Toshiba Awaiting Apple’s Approval on sub-30nm NAND Chips

As reported by Digitimes today, several NAND chip manufacturers including Samsung and Toshiba are still waiting for Apple’s approval on their new production processes below 30nm. As Apple is the biggest buyer of NAND flash memory with popular products like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air (the first line of Mac desktop computers to come with flash memory by default), manufacturers want to make sure mass production is “feasible” while waiting for the company’s consent to move forward with the new process that involves sub-30nm chips, with Samsung operating at 27nm and Toshiba at 24nm.

Both Samsung Electronics’ and Toshiba’s 2Xnm-made products have not yet been certified by their biggest customer Apple, the sources claimed.

Micron Technology and Intel were ahead of peers in volume producing chips using their jointly-developed 25nm technology in the first half of 2011, followed by Samsung’s ramp-up of 27nm, Toshiba’s 24nm and Hynix Semiconductor’s 26nm. This marked the beginning of a race among major NAND chip suppliers to transition to 20nm-class processes, the sources said.

The website notes certification times for new manufacturing process have extended to up to 9 months from 6 to ensure greater “product performance, quality and reliability.” In terms of consumer products, manufacturing process below 30nm result in higher memory density in NAND chips, thus leading to faster devices with more capacity. Smaller processes are also linked to lower costs. Put simply, adopting new production standards for Flash memory will bring devices and computers with more storage on board and lower production costs for Apple in the next years, though Samsung and Toshiba have to wait for now. [via AppleInsider]

Firefox 5 Moving to Beta Today, Mozilla Planning to EOL Firefox 3.5

Officially released on March 22, Firefox 4.0 has been a success for Mozilla with hundreds of millions of downloads worldwide as seen on the official Glow page, but the transition process from older versions to the latest one hasn’t been as smooth as the Mozilla team hoped. As noted by 9to5mac, users still running the old 3.5 version of the browser have become a real problem for the company, which is struggling to find a way to EOL (end-of-life) the product by somehow forcing or promoting a recommended update to Firefox 4.0 for desktop machines. With around 12 million users still running Firefox 3.5, this means Mozilla has to take care of security and stability updates for an old version, and on the other hand users (who might still be unaware of the update or simply don’t have the permissions to run a software update on an office computer) can’t enjoy the latest features and additions to the browser. Either by generating buzz on blogs and tech websites about the new release or simply displaying a popup on screen asking to opt-in for the update, Mozilla is moving forward on its plan to kill the old 3.5 version.

We need a plan to obsolete Firefox 3.5 as we can’t support it into perpetuity. We have been frustrated with our efforts to move users off of old releases and are worried too many people do not upgrade and are on vulnerable and unsupported versions of Firefox.

In the meantime, things are quickly evolving on the Firefox 5 side. Mozilla is adopting a release cycle similar to Google Chrome, with major updates coming out every few months instead of years. After launching Aurora, a channel for releases between “nightly” and “beta” status to give users a rather stable glimpse of new features to come in Firefox, Mozilla has announced the milestone update will come out on June 21st, with the 5.0 version moving to the beta channel today. Firefox 5.0 is still available in the Aurora channel at the moment of writing this, and we expect the beta to officially go live later today. Among several stability improvements and performance enhancements, Firefox 5.0 will let users “pin” websites, with the browser generating app-specific links for websites like Facebook. The update system for add-ons will go under a major update, and the address bar is also rumored to receive new social sharing functionalities.

iPad 2 To Launch In Taiwan Within 2 Weeks?

According to a new report from Digitimes, Apple may be planning to introduce the iPad 2 in Taiwan within the next two weeks. The website reports several “channel retailers” are pointing to a Friday, May 20 release date, although Apple didn’t confirm any of the speculation and other IT shops declined to comment.

The official launch schedule of Apple’s iPad 2 in Taiwan remains unconfirmed despite some channel retailers already rumored that the launch will be on May 20, since Apple product-only retail shop Studio A has commented that it has not yet received the information from Apple, while large IT shops in Taiwan have all declined to comment about the launch schedule. However, sources in the retail channel estimate that the iPad 2 should be launched as soon as within the next 1-2 weeks.

Apple’s Taiwanese website still displays a placeholder for the iPad 2, offering users a chance to be notified when the product is available. Apple introduced the iPad 2 in the United States on March 11 and 25 more countries on March 25. The device was launched in 12 more countries in late April including Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, as well as China on May 6th (WiFi model). A release in Taiwan (and perhaps more countries as part of Apple’s international rollout) later this week would also play well with Apple’s rumored plans to organize a special event for the 10th Retail anniversary,

MacStories Product Review: Wicked Reverb

In the search for an affordable yet comfortable pair of headphones that could replace Apple’s earbuds (at around the same price), I was led to a pair of over-the-ear cans fit for any teenage snow-border who already didn’t own a pair of Skullcandys. The Wicked Reverb, fit for hoodie toting hooligans ready to faux-rock to 128 kbit mp3s, arrived at my desk in an oversized box littered with the kind of graffiti that speaks marketing over value. However, I didn’t want first impressions to ruin what could possibly be a charming relationship, so I’ve spent a couple week’s worth of alone time with my hot-rod red headphones just to see if something Wicked can actually sound, “wicked.” Past the break, a few pics and our conclusive review on whether these are an ample replacement for your worn out buds.

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Munster: NPD Data Suggests Slow Mac Sales in April

Citing data compiled by the NPD, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster says [via Barron’s] Mac sales in April have been slow, mainly due to the MacBook refreshed last year that “set the bar high”, but is still nowhere to be seen in 2011. Indeed, speculation in the past months had pegged Apple’s white MacBook to be headed towards discontinuation, leaving room for the popular MacBook Airs as the new Mac OS X entry line.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster this afternoon offers an update on how Apple (AAPL) computer sales are trending: It was slow in April, he writes, according to U.S. sales data compiled by NPD, thanks to a MacBook refresh a year ago that set the bar high for Apple’s year-over-year comparison.

Apple shipped 9% more units in April than a year earlier, while the Street is modeling the entire June quarter to see an increase of 22%, to 4.2 million units.

NPD data posted in February revealed a 20% increase in year-over-year Mac sales, with Apple set to sell 3.6 million Macs in the quarter – as announced at the Q2 2011 earnings call, Apple eventually sold 3.76 million units. Munster is confident that, in spite of slow sales in April, Apple will hit the Street consensus of 22% growth for the entire June quarter; on the other side of the product line, iPod sales are also expected to be better than the 10-15% drop Munster initially projected.

OS X Lion Includes Nuance Voices, Samples Available Online

[image via 9to5mac]

A number of reports from multiple sources over the past months pointed at Apple willing to ink a deal with speech recognition company Nuance over the implementation of text-to-speech and mobile speech recognition technologies in iOS devices, with a preview of the new functionalities scheduled for the WWDC, where the company is rumored to show off iOS 5 with deep Siri integration – Siri is a “personal assistant” app which used Nuance’s tech, among other things, that Apple bought last year. As noted by Netputing, however, it looks like the Apple / Nuance licensing deal might extend to a broader level, with voices from a Nuance product (Vocalizer, nèe RealSpeak) being embedded in Lion since Developer Preview 1. The voices were included in the first beta of Lion seeded to developers in February, but only last week the website noticed the names and settings in the Text Speech preference panel were strikingly similar to Nuance’s offerings.

The new voices in Lion still can’t be utilized as they return an error upon installation, but the samples can be demoed for free following the direct links below, courtesy of OS X Daily.

Mac OS X Lion is set to include a wide variety of new high quality text-to-speech voices in a multitude of languages, thanks to a long suspected partnership between Apple and Nuance, a speech technology company. The new voices are of surprisingly good quality and speak in major world languages including English, Mandarin, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Thai, Bahasa, Portuguese, Hindi, Russian, and many more.

While the rumors indicated Apple was working closely with Nuance over speech implementation in iOS devices, Nuance might have licensed its full portfolio of international digital voices to Apple for usage in iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion. A demo of these new features will likely happen at the WWDC, which is less than a month away. [via MacRumors]

Instagram 1.7 Released, Brings New Profile View

While we’re still playing with Carousel and looking at its beautiful interface for the Mac, Instagram – the official app – has received a majore update on the iPhone that reaches version 1.7 and adds a number of new features, alongside the omnipresent speed improvements and stability enhancements (for older phones this time). Instagram 1.7 brings custom notifications for likes and comments – in the Edit Profile screen, you can specify whether you want to receive notifications from everyone, people you follow, or simply turn them off. This is a welcome addition if you were being annoyed by continuous notifications and badges. In the same screen, you can now add a Bio to display on your public profile. And profiles have gotten a brand new grid view as well, which makes it easy to check out photos at a glance on profiles that have hundreds, if not thousands, of uploads.

Instagram 1.7 is available now in the App Store.