Suppliers hint at changes to MacBook Air -- Digitimes

While it's a given that the MacBook Air is coming up for a redesign, it's a question of degree. The industrial design won't change much, according to a report from the Taiwanese site.

One of the first MacBook Air rumors of the season alludes to internal changes but few external tweaks.

A fresh report from the not-always-reliable Taipei-based Digitimes claims the "industrial design will not see any major changes" in 2013.

Apple introduced the accentuated wedge aesthetic in late 2010 (see photo above), so about a year and a half will have transpired if new MBAs are introduced in the first half of 2013.

The report makes no mention of displays, but that's an area of intense focus for Apple. The high end of the MacBook Pro line now sports Retina displays with edge-to-edge glass versus the wide metal bezel on the non-Retina Airs.

Apple drops patent claim against Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini

iPhone maker withdraws infringement allegations in exchange for assurances that Samsung will not market the smartphone in the U.S.

Apple has agreed to withdraw patent infringement allegations against Samsung's new Galaxy S3 Mini in exchange for assurances that the South Korean electronics giant will not market the smartphone in the U.S.

Apple disclosed the agreement today in a filing with the U.S. District Court for Northern California. The iPhone maker requested last month that the new smartphone and other Samsung products be added to the ongoing patent dispute between the two companies. Samsung countered that the S3 Mini was unavailable for purchase in the United States, however Apple noted that the new smartphone was listed on Amazon's U.S. storefront and had been purchased and delivered to multiple U.S. addresses.

"Apple will agree to withdraw without prejudice its request to include the Galaxy S III Mini in this case given Samsung's representation that it is not making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing that product into the United States," Apple said in its filing. Apple had previously argued that the device infringed on the same patents included in its $1.5 billion verdict against Samsung. However, Apple has been unsuccessful in securing sales bans.The unlocked phone quietly appeared on Amazon last month, running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and featuring a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, a dual-core 1-gigahertz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage. While the new phone supports either T-Mobile USA or AT&T, it lacks support for any 4G LTE connectivity.

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Fresh iPad rumor: Thinner, lighter version due in March

Apple is prepping a thinner, lighter fifth-generation iPad that shares some of its design cues with the recently released iPad Mini, according to Japanese blog Macotakara. The report was picked up and translated by 9to5Mac.

The report also calls for the next iPad Mini to be released with a Retina display, following other similar reports. The addition wouldn't be surprising, as it was a key missing feature with the original iPad Mini.

The release of a next-generation iPad would drastically shorten an already shortened product life cycle for Apple's main tablet. Thefourth-generation iPad was released last month, just eight months after the third-generation iPad, and the proposed next version would come just five months later. The March timing has been the company's usual launch period for the iPad.

Macotakara cited unnamed sources for its report, and it's unclear whether Apple would want to release an iPad so soon after the last one.

But looking back, the fourth-generation iPad could have been the anomaly, a version released to ensure all of Apple's products had the same Lightning dock connector.

CNET contacted Apple for comment, and we'll update the story when we get a response.

Macotakara calls for the next iPad to have dimensions of 4mm in height, 17mm in width, and 2mm in depth, which is a near physical impossibility. The more likely scenario is that those dimensions represent the difference. The current iPad is 241.2mm in height, 185.7mm in width, and 9.4mm in depth.

Presumably, the next iPad would pick up the white and silver and black and slate elements from the iPad Mini, which in turn picked them up from the iPhone 5.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS

MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGE CREW would like to wish you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous new year !!!

Will Samsung top Apple by withholding revolutionary tech?

Samsung is drawing closer and closer to the technology that will transform the future of smartphones and tablets. The company will show off its progress in a couple of weeks at CES2013 when it demos a 5.5-inch flexible display with a 1,280x720-pixel resolution and a 267-pixel density (an upgrade to the one pictured above from CES 2011).

While these displays are still at least a couple of years away from being used in mainstream products, they represent the next big innovation in mobile devices. They will enable much thinner, more power-efficient smartphones and tablets, and a lot more flexibility (pun intended) in product designs and form factors.

The big question is whether Samsung will share this innovation with Apple.

As you know, Apple and Samsung are still embroiled in an epic legal battle over whether Samsung has illegally mimicked Apple devices and infringed on Apple patents with its Galaxy family of smartphones and tablets.

Since Samsung is also the maker of lots of mobile-hardware components, Apple had been one of its best customers. And from Apple's point of view, Samsung was one of its most important partners for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod lines.

However, the legal cold war between the two companies has inevitably altered the relationship. Apple has been methodically moving business away from Samsung. While some of this has been guised in the wisdom of diversifying its supply chain, it's impossible not to suspect this as retribution for Samsung's perceived improprieties.

Apple loses bid for permanent ban on Samsung phones in U.S.

A U.S. District Court judge denied Apple's bid to ban a number of Samsung's devices from sale in the U.S., a little more than a week after a hearing on the matter.

In a late ruling Monday, Judge Lucy Koh -- who presided over the entire trial between the two tech giants -- denied Apple's bid for a sales ban on 26 Samsung products, saying that any infringing features were just part of a larger feature set, thus making a sales ban too broad.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," Koh wrote. "Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

Apple declined to comment on the ruling, and Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter rolls out option to download tweet archive

Some users on the microblogging site report having been given the option to request and download their entire tweet history.

Twitter has apparently begun rolling out a promised feature that allows users to download their entire archive of tweets.

Twitter users began tweeting last night about the appearance on a new settings feature that allows users to "Request your archive." A brief note under the new button informs users that "you can request a file containing your information, starting with your first tweet. A link will be emailed to you when the file is ready for download."

Navjot Singh@nspeaks

Twitter has finally provided the option to download all your tweets - pic.twitter.com/o1joSUbB

16 Dec 12

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