Archive for August 17th, 2010

As you may know, iOS4 has new features that allow parents or even companies to limit an access to the system for their children or employees respectively.  Currently an access to Safari, YouTube, camera controls, location services and iTunes content including music, TV, movies, software and podcasts (that satisfy given rating threshold) may be blocked.

But the latest developer builds of iOS 4.1, which in turn must appear in a couple of months, include new restrictions related to the Game Center. The latter will allow players to find other players or teams for group play and track their game scores and in-game achievements, but new restrictions will make it possible for parents to prohibit their children from playing against any other user without supervision.

Screenshots that reveal these options are posted above.

A global supply manager for Apple  - the 37-year-old Paul Devine has worked for the company since 2005 -  was faced a civil suit from Apple, which alleges that he received more than $1 million bribes and payments for his assistance to six overseas suppliers. But on Monday he pleaded not guilty in a federal court.

Pegatron, the parent company of Kaedar Electronics, admitted Monday that it did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company between 2005 and 2008. The incident occurred before Pegatron acquired Kaedar, which has supplied iPod packing boxes to Apple since 2005.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Pegatron said Kaedar's business arrangement with Apple was introduced by the same intermediary company that accepted the commission. A spokesperson said that no money was every paid to an individual.

A source has revealed code in iOS 4 showing that new iPhone and iPad models may be set to begin field testing. The relevant code allows devices carrying the designations of iPhone3,2, iPhone3,3, and iProd2,1 to "auto-activate", a process said to allow carriers to test the devices without requiring manual activation through iTunes.

Software evidence of Apple's future devices tends to appear rather early in the development process, as evidenced by iPhone3,1 appearing in iPhone OS configuration files in March 2009. That device turned out to be the iPhone 4, released 15 months later. Evidence of field testing of the iPhone 4 appeared by late November 2009, more than six months before its public launch. The fact that the new iPhone models carry the iPhone3,2 and iPhone3,3 designations rather than "iPhone4,1" suggests that the hardware is a relatively minor revision to the existing iPhone 4, although it is unclear why there are two new iPhone models in testing.

NearFieldCommunications World reports that Apple has recently hired Benjamin Vigier as its new product manager for mobile commerce. Vigier is described as an expert in near field communications (NFC) having been in the field since 2004. Apple also has published a number of patent applications related to NFC technology. That means, that Apple’s mobile devises can be used as an electronic wallet and payment system.

Near Field Communications is short range wireless communication technology (~4 inches) that is used in mobile phones for a variety of applications including mobile ticketing, mobile payments, interactive advertising and more. The same site had previously reported that Apple has had prototype devices already outfitted with the required radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips.

Vigier joined Apple in July 2010. And now he is a product manager for mobile commerce.