According to Zol.com.cn, which is a Chinese news site owned by CBS, Apple is going to assign 1-2% of its product profits to Foxconn workers.
As we wrote before, Apple decided to investigate the case about suicides at Foxconn plant, and recently found out that employees become unhappy because of low wages. The company sees the way of solving the problem in increasing wages for workers. The additional money will come directly from the profits of those of the products that are assembled there.
Workers who take part in the production of iPad will be first to receive the increased pay. Report reveals that currently Foxconn receives 2.3% of the iPad's total price.
Earlier Foxconn also claimed about its decision to give 20% more wage for its workers.
It is known, that entry-level employees who work at the factory in Longhua receive only $131,80 per month of work. To earn more, they usually sign special "voluntary overtime affidavits".
MacStories reader Nik Treiber has found out an interesting feature in the latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4. When you push the on/off button three times in a row while in the lockscreen, the iPhone goes in Flashlight mode. We aren't sure if this is a feature or bug, but it certainly would be quite useful.
By now you all have seen the iPhone 4G prototype and several photos from Gizmodo and Vietnam. Here is a new video that shows an aluminum cover of future iDevice:
As you can see the central body is different from that of iPhone 3G/3GS. We have to wait another week to know the whole truth. The iPhone 4G (iPhone HD) is expected to be announced on June 7th during Apple WWDC conference.
According to new MobileTech World report, Microsoft had presented its new goal at ReMIX event in France. The company wants to sell 30 million devices with Windows Phone 7 OS by the end of 2011.
Garter revealed that Microsoft had only 16,5 million mobile devices sold in 2008, though later Steve Ballmer claimed there were 20 million. That same year Apple exceeded its goal with 11,4 million iPhones. At the beginning of 2010 it was only 8,8 million iPhones and 3,7 million Windows Mobile phones sold.
It is also known that Microsoft will present its Windows Phone 7 (which is incompatible with previous Windows Mobile OS) in the end of this year, which means the company will have a year to gain its goal. Currently the company has no library of apps, no really installed base of users and only two retail stores.
An open letter was revealed these days by a big group of Chinese sociologists, where it is said that Foxconn employees continue to commit suicides because of a situation with China's migrant workforce. The latter has tremendously increased recently, and such workers are often isolated from their family and friends and instead of looking for good jobs they work and get paid too poorly to settle in new cities. Moreover, they have a limited access to healthcare and education.
"We have made them live a migrancy life that is rootless and helpless, where families are separated, parents have no one to support them, and children are not taken care of. In short, this is a life without dignity."
MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev-Team announced via twitter that an unlock for iPhone 3GS with 05.12.01 baseband from iPhone firmware 3.1.3 will be released soon:
@MuscleNerd will there be a unlock software coming out for the 3gs 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01 when the new iPhone 4g comes out??
@EmmanueGT yep..so don't sell or give away your 3GS (at same time, remember not to accept Apple FW upgrades in future)
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky believes that approximately 600-700 thousands of iPads will be sold in June overseas. If he's right then the iPad will definitely become more popular that Mac as only 500,000 Macs will be reportedly sold in June. Read the rest of this entry »
As you remember, recently we reported about new app that allows syncing your iDevices wirelessly. It's called Wi-Fi sync and available in Cydia since Apple didn't approved it. Recently it was updated to version 1.1 to support Windows. You can download it here. Its price is $9.99.
Today Engadget revealed new information on the next-gen Apple TV that was received from sources close to Apple.
The architecture of the upcoming device is based on iPhone OS 4, which means it will have the same hardware (A4 system-on-chip) with 16 GB of flash memory, video out and power socket. It will be 1080p HD capable, and will look like "an iPhone without a screen". Read the rest of this entry »
Today is May 28th and that means iPad launches internationally. Here are the photos from the queues worldwide that have been collected yet by Edgadget. Read the rest of this entry »
New article posted by the Wall Street Journal reveals details on the hysteria around iPad in Japan, where people waited for days to acquire this innovation product. The exclusive carrier of the 3G in Japan Softbank reported it stopped making reservations for the iPad after three days.
"Softbank says it is under strict orders from Apple not to disclose how many reservations it has accepted or how many will be distributed Friday. It wouldn't even disclose whether consumers could buy the iPad on Friday without a reservation."
New York Times reports this is not the first Apple device that has such a huge success in this gadget-loving nation. Moreover, the Cupertino's company has 72% share of overall Japan's smartphone market.
The edition claims 1200 people lined up to buy an iPad at the Apple Store that is situated in Central Tokio.
Ballmer had been rumored by Wall Street analyst Trip Chowdhry to be making an appearance at WWDC. He was expected to announce Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 with support for iPhone OS and Mac OS X development.