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Apple's Textbook Initiative to Feature Strong K-12 Focus, Aid Publishers Large and Small
Bits and pieces of Apple's announcement plans for its education-focused media event to be held tomorrow are continuing to flow in, and Bloomberg now weighs in
with its sources indicating that the company's new publishing tools will have a strong focus on shaking up the kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) textbook market.
At an event in New York tomorrow, Apple will announce a set of tools that make it easier to publish interactive textbooks and other digital educational content, said two people with knowledge of the announcement, who requested anonymity because they weren?t authorized to speak publicly.

The plans, to be unveiled by Apple Internet software chief Eddy Cue, are aimed at broadening the educational materials available for the iPad, especially for students in kindergarten to 12th grade, the people said. By setting its sights on the $10 billion-a-year textbook industry, Apple is using the tablet to encourage students to shun costly tomes that weigh down backpacks in favor of less-expensive, interactive digital books that can be updated anywhere via the Web.
Echoing some of what was covered in an Ars Technica report
earlier this week, Bloomberg's sources claim that Apple's announcements will include support for a new ePub standard and tools to make it easier for both large publishers and self-publishers to bring their content to the iPad.
Apple?s new software is designed for a broad range of authors to be able to publish the content in a digital format, similar to what Amazon.com Inc. does with its direct publishing tools, said the people. Large publishers will be able to create digital versions of textbooks, with embedded graphics and video.

Apple also wants to empower ?self-publishers? to create new kinds of teaching tools, said the people. Teachers could use it to design materials for that week?s lesson. Scientists, historians and other authors could publish professional-looking content without a deal with a publisher.
Apple's media event is scheduled to kick off at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 AM Pacific tomorrow, with Eddy Cue and Roger Rosner
expected to play prominent roles in the presentation.
How Apple's Organizational Structure and Policies Contribute to Company's Strict Secrecy
Fortune publishes
a lengthy excerpt from Adam Lashinsky's forthcoming book, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works, highlighting the company's famous secrecy and how its organizational structure and policies foster that security.

Those readers interested in reading the book from cover to cover when it debuts next week may want to avoid the excerpt, but for others the piece is an interesting look into how Apple keeps its employees on a need-to-know basis with a patchwork of clearances to ensure that very few know the company's full plans for a given project.
Secrecy takes two basic forms at Apple -- external and internal. There is the obvious kind, the secrecy that Apple uses as a way of keeping its products and practices hidden from competitors and the rest of the outside world. This cloaking device is the easier of the two types for the rank and file to understand because many companies try to keep their innovations under wraps. Internal secrecy, as evidenced by those mysterious walls and off-limits areas, is tougher to stomach. Yet the link between secrecy and productivity is one way that Apple (AAPL) challenges long-held management truths and the notion of transparency as a corporate virtue.
The excerpt discusses Apple's command and control structure in which there is reportedly relatively little political maneuvering, with the company's "unwritten caste system" placing Jonathan Ive's industrial design team among the "untouchable" and the status of many other teams fluctuating relative to the prominence of the products they are working on.

Inside Apple debuts on January 25 and will be available from retailers such as Amazon
(hardcover, Kindle e-book, and CD audiobook) and Apple's iBookstore [iTunes Store
].
Apple Seeds OS X 10.7.3 Build 11D46 to Developers [Mac Blog]
One week after the previous developer seed
, Apple late yesterday pushed out Build 11D46 of OS X 10.7.3 to registered developers. Apple continues to report no known issues in the seed notes, and asks developers to focus their testing on iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight and Safari.

The file size has once again grown slightly, with the delta version of the new build for updating from OS X 10.7.2 weighing in at 996.98 MB and a combo version good for updating from any previous version of OS X Lion weighing in at 1.26 GB.

The previous 11D42 build had appeared to be close to a final release, but Apple is clearly still making some final tweaks to the update. The release description has indicated that the main improvements in OS X 10.7.3 will be support for several new languages and fixes for issues related to smart cards, directory services authentication, and Windows file sharing.
iWork VP Roger Rosner Taking Charge of Apple's Digital Textbook Initiative
According to the Wall Street Journal, Roger Rosner is the executive
in charge of Apple's digital textbook tools. According to his LinkedIn page
, Rosner is a Vice President for Productivity Applications at Apple, and has been with the company since 2001, prior to which he was CEO of Bluefish Labs, a software development firm that Apple purchased
.

Prior to working on the textbook service, Rosner was in charge of Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- Apple's iWork suite of office applications. Jessica Vascellaro writes for the WSJ
:

Mr. Rosner's involvement is a sign of how strongly Apple intends to emphasize textbook creation, in a move to change the type of educational content that exists on the market. It also underscores how as textbooks?and all media?goes digital, it is increasingly important for tech companies to get media companies to create digital content with their software or in formats compatible with their services and devices.

Whether Mr. Rosner, whose LinkedIn profile pegs him at Apple for more than a decade, will take the stage on Thursday remains unclear. If so, audiences may remember him from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this past June, where he demonstrated features of iCloud, the company's online syncing and storing service.
Rosner made his first widely-viewed public appearance when he demonstrated iCloud onstage at WWDC in June of 2011.
Apple Ends $100 Printer Rebate Program for New Mac Purchases
Since at least 2004, Apple has offered a rebate program that has typically offered users a $100 rebate when they purchase a new Mac and an eligible printer directly from Apple. The program was typically offered as a three-month program that was consistently renewed upon expiration, although in recent years the company shifted toward a perpetual program while reserving the right to discontinue it at any time.

It now appears that Apple has discontinued the program entirely, as retail sources have indicated to both MacRumors and 9to5Mac
that Apple has ended the program as of today. From a notice to staff members:
Printer Rebates Ending on January 17

Effective Tuesday, January 17, the printer rebate will no longer be offered.

Monday, January 16 will be the last day customers can get a rebate on a qualifying printer when purchased with a Mac. Customers will have 90 days from the date of purchase to submit rebate claims. An additional 30 days will be given to correct invalid claims.

The Apple Retail Store and the Apple Online Store will continue to sell printers, albeit without a rebate offer.

U.S. and CA only: Wednesday, May 16 is the last day the online Apple Rebate Tool will be available to submit rebates. Customers should submit their claims according to the terms of the promotion.
Apple previously offered a number of rebate programs on various products, but with the discontinuation of the printer rebate program, it appears that the company has eliminated rebates entirely. iWork and MobileMe rebates disappeared in April 2011
, and the company had previously offered rebates on the products such as Mac OS X and iLife combination purchases, Mac OS and Microsoft Office combination purchases, and others. Apple previous Back to School rebate program has also been replaced with an iTunes Store/Mac App Store gift card
.

Apple continues to offer several printers as optional add-ons when configuring a new Mac in the online store, specifically promoting AirPrint-compatible models, but the printers are being offered at regular retail prices with no promotional rebates or other discounts.
Robust Market for Used iPhones Benefits Users, Carriers, and Apple
AllThingsD reports
on new research from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) analyzing the impact of the secondary market for the iPhone, the portion of used iPhones that are resold or given away when users upgrade to the latest models. The survey looked at customers purchasing new iPhones beginning with the iPhone 4S launch last October, finding that 53% of those users had returned their old phones to the secondary market.

Of those old phones being put back onto the secondary market, the survey found that 49% were older iPhones, while 21% were BlackBerry smartphones and 15% were Android devices. Approximately two-thirds of those devices returned to the market were given away, with the remaining third having been sold.

Breakdown of old devices reentering secondary market following new iPhone purchases
According to the survey, 87% of those who sold or gave away their old iPhones expected the recipients to activate them for use, which CIRP estimates as representing 11% of carrier activations since last October. That number represents a boon for carriers, who do not have to pay subsidies to Apple on the used devices.
The research firm believes that, for every used iPhone that carriers activate, they save around $400. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, CIRP figures that secondary-market activations saved AT&T and Verizon between $400 million and $800 million in subsidy costs.
And while the strong market for used iPhones may seem like a detriment to Apple given that those users may be purchasing a used device offering no revenue for Apple rather than a new one, CIRP suggests that those low-priced used handsets are a common way to introduce new users to the iPhone ecosystem. That introduction then sets the users up for future purchases of new iPhones and other Apple products.
?It hurts Apple because it creates competition for new iPhones, which we see in the relatively modest sales of reduced-price iPhone 4 and free iPhone 3G units. But it also benefits the company because used iPhone customers aspire to own the newest and best iPhone, so they are likely future new phone customers. In fact, they are likely new entrants to the Apple ecosystem, who otherwise would not have found a way in.?
Beyond future hardware sales, the used iPhone market also increases the user base and market for apps and other iTunes Store content, with the device's able to serve more good than if they had been discarded or forgotten in a drawer.
Thermochromatic iPhone Cases Have a Different Look [iOS Blog]
Incase has introduced a new version of its popular Snap Case made with a heat-activated thermochromatic finish. The $35 pink Thermo Snap Case
changes color when held, like heat-activated t-shirts from the 80's.

Incase may be the most recent case-maker to release a color-changing case, but they are far from the only one. XtremeMac offers the $30 Tuffwrap Shift
that has a similar design to the Snap Case, but is available in a wider variety of color schemes: blue/white; pink/white; purple/blue; grey/white; green/white; and orange/yellow.

Finally, RF Laserworks offers a $12 heat sensitive iPhone 4 backing
that's .005" thick, meaning it's designed to fit under a bumper or other case.

Thermochromatic cases don't quite work
like the XtremeMac press photograph above, showing off fine details and fingerprints. However, they can bring something a little different to the iPhone case world.

All the cases mentioned are compatible with both the iPhone 4 and the 4S.
iPad 3 Media Event Planned for Early February?
Apple's education-focused media event isn't until Thursday, but Japanese blog Macotakara reports
that Apple is already making plans for an early February event to introduce the iPad 3 ahead of an early March launch. The event is said to potentially also feature iOS 5.1, which is currently in developer testing.
According to asian supplier and a source in United States, Apple seems to prepare to hold Special Event in early February.

Because Chinese factory will be in holiday of New Year, then new product is concidered to be released in early March.
An approximately one-month gap between introduction and availability would be significantly longer than for the iPad 2, which was introduced
on March 2, 2011 with availability coming just nine days later on March 11
.

The original iPad didn't launch until more than two months
after its January 2010 debut
, although Apple tends toward longer gaps between introduction and launch for new product categories in order to accommodate the regulatory approval process without risking leaks of product details.

Macotakara has had a mixed track record in the past, but the site's most recent report
regarding the start of iPad 3 production ahead of an early March debut was corroborated
by Bloomberg just a few days later.
Display Panel Shipment Plans Suggest Apple Will Offer iPad 2 Alongside iPad 3
The question of whether Apple will continue to offer the existing iPad 2 as a lower-cost option alongside the forthcoming iPad 3 has been the subject of a fair amount of rumor and speculation, but if new display panel shipment plans
provided to Digitimes are correct, it appears that the iPad 2 will indeed live on.

According to the report, production of the "Retina" resolution iPad 3 display panels at 2048x1536 pixels will surpass that of the lower-resolution 1024x768 iPad 2 panels by the second quarter of this year, but Apple's suppliers will still push out approximately 25 million iPad 2 panels in 2012. That will be down from an estimated 48 million panels in 2011, but still a substantial number. Sources suggest that Apple's suppliers will also be pushing out approximately 40 million iPad 3 panels this year for a total of 65 million iPads between the two models.
With fewer than one million panels shipped in the fourth quarter of 2011, Apple will keep increasing the shipment volume of panels for use in the new version of iPad to 6.0-7.0 million panels in the first quarter and 10.0 million units in the third quarter of 2012, the sources pointed out.

In the meantime, Apple has downwardly adjusted shipments of iPad 2 panels from the peak of 16.0 million panels in the third quarter to 10.0 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and further to 7.0-8.0 million units in the first quarter of 2012, the sources indicated. Thus, the shipment volume of panels for use in the new version of iPad will surpass that of iPad 2 panels in the second quarter of 2012, the sources noted.
Digitimes has had a spotty record regarding Apple's product plans, but it does sometimes offer at least reasonably accurate information on production volumes from the company's supply chain. Consequently, it does seem likely that any volume of iPad 2 display panels approaching the rumored number would be indicative of continued iPad 2 production well beyond the introduction of the iPad 3.

Several reports
have indicated that the iPad 2 will carry on at a lower entry price of $399 or perhaps even lower, a move rumored to be planned in part to counter Amazon's smaller Android-based Kindle Fire priced at $199. The iPad 3 is said to be set for a March debut
and will reportedly offer LTE connectivity, a quad-core processor, and the high-resolution Retina display.

MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - All Stories Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:29:53 PST

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