Apple Reveals Number of Customer Data Requests From U.S. Law Agencies, Repeats Denial Of PRISM Involvement

Apple posted a press release on its site reaffirming its “commitment to customer privacy” and stating that it first heard of the PRISM program when questioned by news organizations on June 6. The company also said that it received between 4,000 to 5,000 requests from U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement for customer data between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013.
“Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it,” Apple stated in its press release. Between 9,000 to 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in the requests and “included both criminal investigations and national security matters.”
The press release also states that Apple does not collect maintain personal details about customers: “there are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.” For example, the company says that iMessage and FaceTime conversations are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can read them, and Apple cannot decrypt the data.
Apple’s statement comes after other tech companies implicated in the NSA scandal also disclosed the number of government requests for information they had received in an effort to support their claims that they denied NSA special access to their servers and win back the trust of users.
Facebook said on June 15 that for the six months ending December 31, 2012, it had received between 9,000 to 10,000 requests for data from U.S. law enforcement agencies. During that same period Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 requests. Meanwhile, Google has asked the U.S. government to be allowed to publish more information about national security requests it has received.

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: E3, The Death Of Symbian, And WWDC

It was a big week in gadgets, and thus, a big TC Gadgets podcast it shall be. This week, we discuss developments at E3, including Xbox One and PS4 pricing, the death of Nokia’s Symbian OS, and of course, WWDC.
Will you buy a PS4 or an Xbox One? Does despair fill you from nose to navel when you remember the good old days of Symbian? Is the new iOS 7 design repelling, attractive, or some bizarre combination of the two? John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Darrell Etherington, and Natasha Lomas touch on all of this and more.
Enjoy!

iOS 7 Eliminates MAC Address As Tracking Option, Signaling Final Push Towards Apple’s Own Ad Identifier Technology

Apple has now taken another step to push app publishers to use its preferred ad tracking option, the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), with the debut of the iOS 7 beta. Confirming what many have suspected, Apple is eliminating an alternative option involving tracking by MAC addresses. This method had sprung up following a change to Apple’s Developer Documentation in 2011, announcing its intention to end developers’ reliance on the unique identifier known as the UDID.
It’s been a long time since Apple announced it would begin phasing out developer access to the UDID on iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad – something which at first led to some confusion in the industry. Over the years, developers had learned to use the identifier for advertising purposes, and as a way to store data about their users. But the method raised privacy concerns, since the number is tied to each individual device and cannot be removed, cleared, or controlled by end users.
Several alternatives soon appeared in the UDID’s place, each hoping to become the new default method. Many developers still use some these – or just as likely, a combination of some these – today.
Earlier this year, Apple began signaling again that the alternative it had in mind for the post-UDID world was its own when it began rejecting apps using cookie-tracking methods. Then in March, the company announced that it would no longer accept new applications or app updates that access UDIDs as of May 1, 2013.

With that deadline now behind us, Apple is again pushing its community to the UDID’s more privacy conscious replacement, the IDFA. This Apple-approved method provides the attribution advertisers need, along with the privacy and security controls Apple wants to provide for its users.
According to data collected by mobile app marketing firm Fiksu, which helps app publishers with user acquisition efforts, iOS 7 devices – all beta testers, at this point – are always now returning a MAC address of 02:00:00:00:00:00. This “dummy” address is the equivalent of the phone number 555-1212, for example. It began showing up for the tens of thousands of unique iOS 7 devices in Fiksu’s logs earlier this week, says Craig Palli, Fiksu’s mobile app marketing technology platform head.
There is also a mention in the pre-release notes for iOS 7 distributed to developers which states that this single, meaningless MAC address is now the new expected behavior.
“The MAC address, a hardware based identifier, has long been a way for advertisers to have a permanent, unique identifier for each device, providing a stable tracking option as an alternative to the controversy-plagued UDID,” Palli explains. “However, the same privacy concerns raised about the UDID apply equally to the MAC address – it just received less publicity,” he adds. Now, for those who haven’t yet made the switch to IDFA, the window to migrate is closing.
That being said, Palli says that most publishers and ad networks generally knew that the MAC method would not be supported, and the amount of traffic addressed by MAC addresses had “rapidly diminished” in recent months. Today, it exists as a very small, single-digit percentage, he tells us. Other methods, including digital fingerprinting and to a lesser extent, HTML5 cookies, are also still in use today, both with their own strengths and weaknesses.
At this time, there have not yet been any reports of app rejections because of the MAC address method being used, though, as noted above, the cookie-tracking method had seen some rejections earlier this year.
The app publisher and advertiser communities have had a long time to prepare for UDID’s demise and the shift to the IDFA. And while that hasn’t been an entirely error-free process, the time has now come to finalize the move.
“Fortunately, as an ecosystem, we’ve transitioned to the IDFA,” says Palli, “so by the time iOS 7 rolls out it should make little to no difference from an app developer or marketer’s point of view.

I Think We Can All Agree This Is Better Than Apple’s iOS 7 Redesign, Right?

Lisa Frank. Dayglo Barbie. Rainbow unicorn. Fisher Price. A mess, trouble, confusing. Marketing department. What are, “words used to describe the iOS 7 redesign,” Alex? Now that the Apple keynote beer goggles have worn off, the polarizing makeover of Apple’s iOS 7 operating system is starting to sink in. Surely, this is not it? This is not done, right?
Given its “beta” label – which Apple actually uses correctly – there’s a good chance that many of our quibbles with the disjointed OS will be fixed by the time of its public release later this fall. But one of the most upsetting things about the makeover is unfortunately one of the most visible: the icons. They’re inconsistent, they seem rushed, and in some cases, they’re just downright ugly.
Apple has billions of dollars in cash just sitting around, and it couldn’t buy itself a set of nice-looking icons?
And don’t give me that “they only had eight months” crap. I know plenty of people who would forgo eating, sleeping and sunlight for less than even a single billion to pump out better icons than this in that same time frame.
Well, Apple’s misstep is Dribbble.com’s gain. The online community for designers is having a moment as its users try to fix all Apple’s mistakes. And some of these third-party makeovers are actually quite good, too.

Above: Apple’s version is on the right.
One, in fact, is now becoming one of the most-viewed images on the site. Ever. The iOS 7 redesign here, created by 20-year old UI/UX designer Leo Drapeau has, as of today, reached over 97,000 views.
Drapeau, who’s currently living in Paris and is pursuing his Bachelor’s in Web Design at a school called EEMI, says he made his version of the redesign in a few hours.
“I was following the WWDC keynote, and I was really excited about the overall UX and UI changes and evolutions in iOS 7, but the icons of the homescreen bugged me,” he explains. “So, I just wanted to refined them a little, to make them cleaner and more harmonized, but not to reinvent the whole design.”
Drapeau downplays his work, humbly adding, “there’s really nothing revolutionary about this post. I think it just got popular because it was one of the first redesigns on the site.” However, Dribbble.com’s co-founder Rich Thornett tells us that Drapeau’s image here is the second-most viewed attachment the Dribbble.com website has ever had. Meanwhile, another in the set is currently the third-most viewed shot ever, and just a couple hundred views from reaching #2.
The student designer’s work has clearly struck a chord. The set of iOS 7 images now has ten pages and hundreds of comments, most of them positive and some offering tips as to how the design could be improved a bit further with minor tweaks.
Overheard at TechCrunch while clicking through Drapeau’s work: “I didn’t realize how much I missed the drop shadows.”
And on Dribble.com: “nice,” “better,” “bravo,” and “perfect!”
Drapeau says he’s been making little updates based on some of the remarks  - for example, with the third version of the redesign, he modified the Compass icon entirely, bringing it closer to the real one.
Since then, he has also uploaded a final update, with all the previous changes and other improvements to the Clock, Stock, Compass, and Mail icons, and also added a Dark mode and Light mode, depending on the wallpaper you use.
(You can see an earlier version of the design above, and the newer one with the more Apple-like Compass beneath it).
Since the post, Drapeau says he’s received several work inquiries, mainly from individuals and startups, both French and American, as well as internships and job offers from bigger companies. But he’s continuing with his schooling and side projects for now.
iOS 7 isn’t all bad by any means, though it has a number of issues to address between the beta and the release. Many of those are under-the-hood changes, however, or less obvious quirks like the confusing lockscreen arrow or that you have to swipe emails right to left to delete, for example. But the homescreen icons – the imagery that everyone can relate to, designer or not – should have been given more attention before being trotted out on stage as the next big thing.
This is not Apple perfection. We

Apple Reportedly Trying 4.7- and 5.7-Inch Screens On iPhones Next Year, Cheaper Model Coming In Fall

Apple is looking at various changes to its iPhone lineup over the course of the next year, according to a new report from Reuters, including two sizes of larger smartphone devices, in both a 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch flavor. The “phablet” plans are also being considered alongside a less expensive iPhone model, which is slated to begin production next month, according to Reuters’ sources, after a brief delay as Apple attempts to get the colors right for the new plastic-backed device.
The cheaper iPhone would be launching in September following full production kicking off in August, according to some of Reuters’ sources, with an initial shipment target of around 20 million low-cost devices for the holiday quarter next year. The report details echo what we’ve heard from other sources recently, including from fairly accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who previously shared reports of multi-color options for the cheaper iPhone, with a thin plastic case and the same 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5. Reuters adds that it should cost around $99 when it launches, and that its release timeline might be pushed back by as much of a year.
Reports of the low-cost iPhone have been making the rounds in more or less reliable circles for a while now, which is the more interesting component of this new report. Other sources have reported that Apple is looking at bigger-screened devices, so-called “phablets” to compete with similar offerings from Android smartphone manufacturers, including the Galaxy Note line from Samsung. But even Apple’s flagship smartphone, the iPhone 5, lags behind most competing general-purpose non-phablet devices like the HTC One and Galaxy S4 in terms of screen size at 4-inches.
Apple’s big-screen iPhone plans are less evolved than those for its low cost device, the report claims, with one of Reuters’ sources suggesting that we could still see the plans shift considerably before anything reaches a production stage. Apple has discussed the idea with production partners, but has not set any kind of timeframe for test production or launch as of yet. Reuters says that Apple is considering the different screen sizes comes as there’s increased pressure to field more than one device a year.
Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested that we might see a larger iPhone when the trade-offs of battery life, screen quality, color reproduction and other failings brought about would be possible to counteract, speaking at the recent AllThingsD D11 conference. He did admit that some consumers are interested in those devices, however, so it’s likely that these reports come from Apple’s attempts to overcome those limitations with engineering. Plenty of Apple products don’t make it past the testing phase, however, so while you can be sure Apple is experimenting with big displays for iPhone, you can’t be equally sure we’ll ever see one. Still, Cook’s guidance to consumers and media that they can look for big product launches in the fall and through next year specifically do line up with the timing of possible iOS phablet launches reported by Reuters today.

Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Smartphones, Tablets Amid More PC Decline

Gartner today has released its latest figures charting its overall predictions for how IT devices — from PCs to mobile handsets — are going to perform this year and in 2014. As in years before, numbers will continue to climb: in 2013, total shipments will rise 5.9% to 2.35 billion, and will rise again in 2014 to 2.5 billion units, driven by portable, often less expensive, but just as powerful mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android will account for just over one-third of all devices this year, and nearly half in 2014. It’s an Android world after all.
But continuing a trend we have been seeing for some time, personal computers — which kicked off the technology love affair for consumers — will not be the hardware reaping the most benefits from that growth. PC shipments will decline this year to 305 million units, Gartner says, before dropping again in 2014 to below 300 million (289 million).
Mobile devices will continue to replace PCs as consumers’ primary computing device, leading with smartphones, which will continue to be the most popular IT device sold. The 1.8 billion units in smartphones that that Gartner estimates will be shipped this year equates to about six times the number of PCs. And while tablets are still far behind both at only 201 million units, they will be growing the fastest, up some 68% on 2012. In comparison, mobile phone growth is 4.3%, actually slower than the overall average of 5.9%. And this is far from being a simple first-world trend or emerging market trend:
“Consumers want anytime-anywhere computing that allows them to consume and create content with ease, but also share and access that content from a different portfolio of products,” writes Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Mobility is paramount in both mature and emerging markets.”
“Shipments”, as we’ve pointed out before, refers to devices sent to channels for sales. Some analysts use the term interchangeably since these are estimates; and they are an important barometer for how sales are proceeding and users are moving. Indeed, in an example of shipping estimates at work, Gartner notes that the “sharp decline in PC sales recorded in the first quarter was the result in a change in preferences in consumers’ wants and needs, but also an adjustment in the channel to make room for new products hitting the market in the second half of 2013.”
The “ultramobile” group is an odd one and it will be interesting to see how this evolves. This is Gartner’s preferred term for the neither-here-nor-there category of hardware that includes devices like Chromebooks, tablet/PC hybrids and non-traditional “phablets”, and Gartner’s guess is that whatever impact they will have on sales will be to the detriment of tablets rather than PCs or smartphones:
“The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer. We will also see consumer preferences split between basic tablets and ultramobile devices,” writes Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. Specifically, in Q4, he notes that ultrabooks will hit the market built with Windows 8.1, equipped with new Intel processors Bay Trail and Haswell.
In any case, ultramobiles’ impact will be minimal for now. Out of the 2.35 billion devices shipped this year, only 20 million will be ultramobiles.
Perhaps more to the point will be the fact that cheaper smartphones and tablets will see another kind of pressure: the growth of software that will extend the life of these devices, which will mean users will be less inclined to spend money upgrading them.
“The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer,” writes Atwal.

When it comes to platforms, there aren’t many surprises here. Android — which has been dominating the computing industry for a while now with very ubiquitous smartphones running on Google’s OS — will continue to ride that wave. This year there will be 866 million Android units shipped — or roughly one-third of all the devices that will be sent out for sale. Android devices will continue their climb, at a rate faster than that of overall devices. They will hit the billion-unit mark in 2014, with 1.06 billion Android-powered units, equating to just under half of the 2.5 billion devices sold that year.

As you can see from the figures above, Apple is not winning in terms of having the most ubiquitous platform — and it’s not even a close second contender. But interestingly, Gartner points out that it is the most successful at achieving a cross-device ecosystem.
“Although the numbers seem to paint a clear picture of who the winner will be when it comes to operating systems (OS) in the device market, the reality is that today ecosystem owners are challenged in having the same relevance in all segments,” writes Milanesi. “Apple is currently the more homogeneous presence across all device segments, while 90 percent of Android sales are currently in the mobile phone market and 85 percent of Microsoft sales are in the PC market.” What she also didn’t note is that while Samsung is the strongest in smartphones, there are dozens more making Android devices, and in PCs the picture is much the same. This points to how Apple may be better positioned to capitalize on making the best margins not just on their hardware, but also on the services that they lock consumers in to using across all of it.
Samsung, it should be pointed out, is a strong contender in all these categories as well, so it will not be surprising to see it making moves to offer more services that tie in their different devices together. The question remains, though, whether companies like Microsoft and Google who have been so far strongest in software will try to expand that more into hardware. Results so far have been mixed.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, 8.0 and 7.0 Coming To The U.S. July 7 For $399, $299 And $199

Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 3 line has been official for a little while now, but U.S. availability and pricing was up in the air until today. The relatively cheap tablets are going to be $199, $299 and $399 for the Galaxy Tab 7.0, 8.0 and 10.1, respectively, and will be available from retailers including Best Buy, Fry’s and Amazon beginning on July 7, with pre-orders starting tomorrow, June 25.
For those who aren’t familiar with these devices yet, the Tab 3 line comes in three size options, the 7.0 with a 7-inch 1024×600 display, the 8.0 with an 8-inch 12800×800 screen, and the 10.1 with a 10-inch 1280×800 display. Both the Tab 8.0 and the 10.1 get Android 4.2 and beefier processors, while the 7.0 runs Android 4.1 and has half the onboard storage with 8GB (though all are expandable via microSD).

The full stats of each device are available at Samsung.com, but maybe the most interesting thing about them is that they exist at all. Samsung’s Galaxy line of tablets have never been iPad-level successes, and Samsung has since introduced the Note line of tablets, which seems to be where it’s focusing most of its innovation energy and R&D resources. So why bother continuing with the Tab line at all? Isn’t that just fracturing its potential buyer audience for any one tablet device?
Samsung offers its own answer in the announcement for these devices, citing Forrester research to justify its wide-ranging multi-model lineup. Samsung says that since Forrester has found that around half of those who own both a smartphone and a tablet opt to use the tablet to get online, and since people use tablets for a wide range of different activities, it follows that Samsung should offer a tablet perfectly tailored to each different use case. That’s not the same conclusion I’d draw, however; given the same information, I’d argue that building one or two tablets that cover the range of consumer needs would be a better play, but I’m not Samsung, and I’m not an undisputed leader in mobile electronics.
Samsung’s massively diverse product line was recently visualized by U.K. consumer electronics buying guide “Which?”, revealing not less than 26 sizes for Galaxy devices released over the past few years. But to me it looks less like an attempt to cover the gamut of buyer needs, and more like a way to block out the competition by occupying every available niche. Individually, Samsung’s products, especially in the tablet category, aren’t runaway successes; but taken together, they represent a wall of minor wins and customers won over; nearly every consumer want is addressed, even the contradictory ones.
And it’s working: Samsung’s tablet share has ground 283 percent over the last year and make up 17.9 percent of all shipments worldwide, according to IDC’s most recent numbers. Once, all mobile players were looking at simplifying their product lines to be more like Apple, but now Samsung is surging on a scattershot approach, and it has the resources and the momentum to keep at it for a while to come