Credit: CNET

Updated. The scheduled delivery of petitions asking Apple for better treatment of workers in factories that produce iPhones and iPads happened on schedule in New York City Thursday morning. Observers say there were far more press in attendance than actual protestors, but that the mission — to hand deliver the signatures of more than 250,000 people — was accomplished.

CNET’s Roger Cheng was at the petition hand off at Apple’s store in New York’s Grand Central Terminal and took photos.

Cheng also reports that Apple “was ready” for the representatives of Change.org and SumOfUs.org, the groups who organized the event. In all, there were  a”little more than a dozen supporters” who showed up, some holding up signs depicting an “ethical iPhone.” The Change.org representative who delivered the signatures to an Apple employee told him that the employees of the store “were very polite.”

Update: The same type of staged petition delivery is scheduled for Apple stores locations in San Francisco, Washington D.C., London and Bangalore.

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The document of the things they found is available here.

The FBI talked to many of his acquaintances and “covered inquiries in the United States as to [Jobs'] character, loyalty and general standing.” None of the findings are particularly eye-opening if you’ve read his biography, but it is yet more insight into a fascinating man who at one point put off the investigators for “three weeks” rather than talking to them.

It’s actually kind of amusing to read things in stiff, official bureaucrat-ese like:

“Two individuals, who were acquainted with Mr. Jobs while they were employed at ACI, offered favorable comments concerning Mr. Jobs. They stated that he is strongwilled, stubborn, hardworking and driven, which they believe is why he is so successful. They further stated, however, that Mr. Jobs possesses integrity as long as he gets his way: however, they did not elaborate on this.”

Most of the names of the people interviewed about Jobs are redacted, but if you know his personal history well enough, it’s easy to figure out who they talked to.

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AllThingsD is reporting that Apple will hold one of its signature press events to announce the iPad 2′s successor in the first week of March. According to ATD writer John Paczkowksi, “The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.” He has no information about how long after the event it will be possible to go buy the iPad 3 (the presumed name).

Apple has been pretty regular about its iPad cycle, and it was the first week of March last year when Apple first showed off the iPad 2. So it’s not far-fetched in any way that the company would have its successor ready the same time this year.

As for what will be inside it? Paczkowksi says he’s hearing the same basic thing as has been whispered in the Apple rumor mill over the last few months: faster chips, better graphics and about the same form factor. The one curious thing he says? The next iPad will have ”a 2048×1536 Retina Display — or something close to it.”

So for those thinking a Retina Display was a given, this will make for at least some element of surprise once the iPad event arrives.

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That’s because of the 1.8 million iPhones the carrier sold, 40 percent of them went to new customers that came to the carrier for the iPhone. We knew the iPhone was fairly popular on Sprint’s network — the carrier sold out of its stock of the iPhone 4S the first day it was available back in October.

Although 1.8 million iPhones may pale in comparison to its competitors, it was Sprint’s first quarter selling the iPhone, after all. AT&T sold 7.6 million iPhones during the quarter, but the carrier had a nearly four-year head start on Sprint. Verizon, meanwhile, sold 4.2 million iPhones last quarter.

While new customers may be coming in the door, it’s still costing Spring some extra dough. The carrier said Wednesday that the costs of subsidies it paid during the quarter went up from $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion in the last year, which was ”primarily due to the launch of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, which on average carry a higher subsidy rate per handset as compared to other handsets.”

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What You Need to Get Started

To start, you will also need an HDTV with an Apple TV attached, an iPhone 4S and a free Skype account. Why Skype and not FaceTime?  Well there are many more Skype users than FaceTime users. And quite frankly, it is much easier to get all members of the family up and running with a free Skype account than to initialize everyone’s iOS and Mac devices with FaceTime.

Prepare the Car Mount

Most iPhone docks are designed for someone sitting at a desk. What is needed is a better mount that can allow the iPhone to be better positioned for larger settings.  Take any decent smartphone car mount with a suction cup, like this one from Arkon for $15 on Amazon. The suction cup needs a smooth surface to attach to, so try mounting it to any household hand mirror. This set up gives extra stability to the video and the added ability to pass the camera in the mount around easily. The great thing about the car mount from Arkon is that it is just about infinitely adjustable, so no matter how or where you need to place the hand mirror you can angle the iPhone the way you want. And if you happen not to have anywhere to place the hand mirror, just tack up a nail and hang the hand mirror upside down on the wall.  Just don’t lock in the iPhone 4S before you make the video call. (The mount’s quick release allows one to attach and detach the iPhone quickly and easily.) Wait until after the call has been established before you put the iPhone into the car mount attached to the hand mirror.

Initiate the Video Call

Placing a video call on Skype with an iPhone is just as easy as chatting or placing a voice call.  To increase the quality of the video once the call is established, be sure to use the back camera of the iPhone. Then double click the phone’s Home button and swipe left twice to reveal the volume and Airplay buttons. To display the call on the big screen, just click on the Apple TV you want to use and turn on Mirroring. Once you’ve done that, mount the iPhone in the car mount and experience video calls on the big screen. As a side note, I have found that when placing Mac-to-iPhone Skype video calls, it is easier to establish a video connection when the call originates from the Mac.

If this solution works great for you, you can always shop around for a more attractive mounting solution.  You could even invest in a mountable surface that permanently affixes itself to the wall just above your HDTV. For instance, the top shelf of my main entertainment system is made of glass, so I don’t really need a mirror in that room of the house.  There are just as many car mounts on the market as there are solutions on how to mount them on or near an HDTV.

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Apple’s 37 million iPhones sold last quarter were good enough to just eke out a win in smartphones sold during the final three months of 2011. Meanwhile, Samsung shipped 36 million units during the same time frame, according to IDC.

But for all of 2011, Samsung actually shipped the most smartphones, to the tune of 94 million units, IDC says. That’s an increase in shipments of 310 percent for the company compared to 2010, when the company shipped just 22.9 million smartphones — a huge growth rate.

Apple was very close behind, with 93.2 million iPhones shipped during 2011, which, at 96 percent for the year, is also impressive growth but nowhere near Samsung’s amazing showing.

If you’ve been following along then it won’t be a surprise that the rest of the smartphone pack failed to keep pace with these two. Nokia was a distant third for the year with 77.3 million smartphones shipped, followed by RIM with 51.1 BlackBerrys shipped, and HTC with 43.5 million units.

The final tally for 2011 worldwide market share finds Samsung with a 19.1 percent share, and Apple with a 19 percent share. Some might say that’s too close to call. Whatever the exact numbers are, the real story is clearly how over the course of 2011 the smartphone market has coalesced around these two companies. I’d say 2012 is going to be a very interesting year in smartphones.

Note: This story originally misattributed the data to The NPD Group. The report is from IDC.

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• Apple has almost $100 billion in cash now.
• Cook told investors and reporters late last year he wasn’t “religious” about holding cash, a subtle but important difference in the attitude Steve Jobs has long had about Apple’s cash holdings.
• CFO Peter Oppenheimer shared several weeks ago that the company is “actively discussing” what to do with all that money.
• People who could be in a position to know are starting to talk openly about it.

A UBS analyst says Apple has been soliciting opinions from investors on what to do with the money. We all know what investors want Apple to do:  give it back to shareholders.

And on Monday, Fortune editor Adam Lashinsky, author of the just-released (and excellent) Inside Apple, writes that we should expect to hear about AAPL owners getting a dividend “sooner rather than later.” As someone who’s demonstrated he knows a thing or two about what goes on inside 1 Infinite Loop, this is yet another good indication Apple is thinking differently about its money these days. As Lashinsky points out, what else will they do with it?:

[W]hat’s becoming increasingly clear is that Apple has a success problem on its hands: It has run out of ways to responsibly spend its profits. It has never done what any other big company would view as a major acquisition. Silicon Valley investment bankers desperately would like to see Apple acquire Twitter, for example. But this would be so contrary to the Apple acquisition mindset that it’s hard to imagine.

Apple’s annual shareholder meeting is coming up on February 23. These kinds of meetings can be somewhat of a snooze. Perhaps this year edition will have a few fireworks.

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The original iPhone, 2007.

Here’s a good primer on how Apple’s initial product design and conception works.

Apple Insider has a great account of former iPhone marketing manager Bob Borchers talking to students at an unnamed California school recently. He explains how his former boss, Steve Jobs, originally approached the iPhone team with the challenge of building a device that to date has sold 183 million units in less than five years.

“His [charge] was simple. He wanted to create the first phone that people would fall in love with. That’s what he told us.”

“Now if you’re an engineer, like I am by training, you’re like ‘what the heck does that mean?’,” he said. “But he was right. The idea was, he wanted to create something that was so instrumental and integrated in peoples’ lives that you’d rather leave your wallet at home than your iPhone.” Borchers noted that Apple’s success largely stemmed from focusing on only a handful of fundamental concepts: break the rules but do so in an exceptionally well manner, pay attention to detail and make people “think differently” about the relationship they have with their device, especially given that smartphones already existed in the market.

Notice the lack of numbers or spec goals right from the start. Later in the talk, Borchers says the overall goals Jobs laid out for the nascent device were to “be a revolutionary mobile phone, the best iPod to date, and also let users carry ‘the internet in their pocket.’” He also didn’t mention downloadable apps, GPS, video or photos. Instead, when breaking into a market in which the company had no prior presence, Jobs started with the concept of an emotional connection with the product and an attitude not to imitate or mimic, but to think beyond, what any other company was presently making.

This is useful for thinking about how Apple will approach future markets too.

You can watch the videos, which have much more about Apple’s unconventional relationship with AT&T, obsession with product packaging and more, here.

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Patent blog FOSS Patents says the two actions are unrelated, and that Apple removing some older products comes because Motorola moved to enforce an important patent victory it won back in December. It was then that a judge ruled that Motorola had a patent on a ”method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.”

The result is that only older devices like the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G iPads were removed. Why not the iPhone 4S? It could be because the iPhone 4S has a chip from Qualcomm. The affected models have Infineon chips. Qualcomm chips could be safe for Apple in this case, according to FOSS Patents, if we assume “that Motorola and Qualcomm have a cross-license agreement in place (just like Samsung and Qualcomm do)” which would mean that “Apple is covered by extension, as a result of what is called patent exhaustion (a patent owner gets paid only once for the same use of a patent in a product).”

Perhaps more worrisome for some Apple customers who own the iPhone 4S in Germany right now is an injunction that affects iCloud users who want push notifications on their phones. The ruling affects any Apple devices that can receive push email notifications from iCloud or the earlier version, MobileMe. While neither service will get shut down as a result of the ruling, Apple will likely have to come up with a workaround for its iCloud/MobileMe customers there.

Apple won’t be letting this one go. As a company representative told PaidContent in a bit of subtle snarkiness on Friday, “Apple believes this old pager patent is invalid and we’re appealing the court’s decision.”

Update: It looks like the same German court may have suspended the injunction on the older 3G iPhones and iPads and they will be on sale again in “a matter of hours.” Apple told AllThingsD just now: “All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly. Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

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The headrest mount, which works with Wallee’s existing iPad case mounting system, attaches to the headrest rail of any vehicle, and rotates in and out to provide viewing to one or more unruly kids who need entertaining in the back seat on long trips. It’s a simple, sturdy design in and of itself, but it’s really more impressive as the latest proof that Wallee’s creators at Studio Proper are into delivering long-term value rather than chasing short-term gain.

A lot of my favorite cases for the original iPad, including the ZAGGmate iPad keyboard case, required me to buy a new version in order to play nice with the iPad 2. The Wallee also required a new case, but it stung much less since all the accessories the case is designed to work with remained useful. Wall mounting disks, stands and a VESA mount still work with the new iPad 2 version of the Wallee case, and recent additions to the line, including a hand strap for easy one-handed use, and the upcoming Wallee Lock for secure, interactive iPad-based displays mean investment in the system continues to feel fresh, two years after the original Wallee’s introduction.

Most mobile device users will likely go through piles of device accessories that quickly become as outdated as the gadgets they’re designed for, so it’s nice to see a system that embraces and builds on its past, rather than simply starting fresh with each new whim of Apple’s design department.

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Apple’s 37 million fourth quarter iPhone shipments were a far cry from the market leaders, however. Nokia still ruled the roost with 113.5 million handset shipments, while Samsung edged closer to grabbing the top spot with a 20 percent increase compared to the previous year, to a total of 97.6 million units shipped. Samsung succeeded by growing its smartphone sales, but also by increasing its feature phone shipment numbers in an otherwise soft market for those devices.

While Apple was the biggest gainer percentage-wise during the quarter, LG suffered the biggest drop,with a negative 42.2 percent change compared to the same period in 2010. Its total shipments were at 17.7 million for the year, which is on par with 2007 levels. LG definitely felt the hit of the waning feature phone market and was unable to do much to impress consumers with its smartphones, either.

Apple also ranked third overall in terms of  mobile phone shipments throughout the whole calendar year thanks to its fourth quarter results, with 93.2 iPhone shipments and year-over-year growth of 96.2 percent.

IDC predicts that the mobile phone market will continue to experience double-digit growth, despite only seeing 11.1 percent growth year-over-year in 2011, versus 18.7 percent growth between 2009 and 2010.

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Nguyen goes into a lot of detail, and it’s a must-read for anyone thinking about commissioning an iOS (or really any mobile OS) application. Here’s one passage in particular that I know will resonate with a lot of freelance devs:

Converting an iPhone app to iPhone/iPad universal app: This is the worst ‘additional feature’ found in iPhone development contracts. Because an iPad app is not a frikin’ additional feature. The iPad app is always more complex than iPhone app, and most of the time requires entirely different interface and interaction mechanism. It’s like making an electric bicycle and then convert[ing] it to a fuel-powered motorcycle! They are very similar at what they do, but under the hood, the difference is immense. [Emphasis in the original]

A lot of companies may be interested in what an app can do for their business, but without a good sense of what kind of resources need to be invested in order to create the app in the first place, there is bound to be ample frustration on all sides. Nguyen’s no-nonsense primer is a good way to help avoid some of that frustration.

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Munster claims discussions with a “major TV component supplier” which had been contacted by Apple about its TV display parts lead him to believe Apple is still on track to introduce a dedicated television device in late 2012. However, there’s a caveat: Munster thinks if Apple can’t get a revolutionary new content model in place, then it won’t move on the market this year.

The analyst then goes on to suggest three possible scenarios that might constitute a unique Apple approach to the television market. Those potential solutions break down roughly as follows:

1. Changing the experience, not the service

In Munster’s first scenario, Apple would basically leave TV programming to existing operators and simply layer its own interface software on top, including menus, guides, DVRs and content discovery. Munster notes that Apple was expected by some to manage its own wireless network in the U.S. ahead of the iPhone launch, but instead partnered with AT&T and focused on UI and UX instead of content. Remember that apps came after the iPhone’s original introduction.

2. A hybrid content model

Apple could also partner with existing networks to offer live TV, and at the same time, deliver on-demand content from providers like Netflix, Hulu Plus or any other content partner willing to play via an App Store-style distribution channel, Munster suggests. It’s a “best of both worlds” type solution, and would probably still come complete with an overhauled UX, but might be trickier to negotiate than option number one, since it involves negotiating with two different types of content providers.

3. A la carte

Munster’s last option is a completely customizable, a la carte option that would see users subscribe to live TV packages from content providers. This would be the most revolutionary of the options in terms of the existing TV experience, but it would also involve a dazzling shift in the way providers make their content available, and the negotiations involved in doing so would be challenging, at best. In the end, there’s also no real guarantee that selective programming is what viewers are after, especially if existing, less flexible bundles from other sources cost less.

GigaOM’s Ryan Lawler wrote last year that Apple’s television effort was more about experience than about content, and described a likely outcome of Apple’s TV endeavors that pretty much mirrors Munster’s second scenario listed above.

Given the challenges involved in negotiating the third solution, I have to agree that a system that works with existing content sources, but also opens up the possibility of apps for different kinds of content makes the most sense as a solution that could still make big waves in the TV industry while also remaining realistically possible in the near-term. Which of Munster’s Apple TV predictions, if any, make the most sense to you?

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Being the resident “extreme” iPhone case enthusiast (and also the klutz who drops his phone most often), I was intrigued by the new cellhelmet Kickstarter project. This $44.99 case combines svelte design with protection against drops, but bundles it with an actual insurance policy that replaces your iPhone if damaged while in the case.

The case in and of itself isn’t magical, and according to David Artuso of cellhelmet creator cellpig.com, the case isn’t “superman.” The design has angled edges to protect against drops, and a choice of six different colored backplate shields to protect the glass, providing great protection without the bloat of other solutions.

What sets the cellhelmet apart is the bundled insurance policy, administered by Global Warranty Group. Should the iPhone break while in the case, a $50 handling fee covers any repairs required, or complete replacement if necessary. I’ve written about iPhone insurance before,  this case including the insurance for the $44.99 purchase price is what makes it interesting.

The plan does not cover water damage, nor does the case protect the water sensors, but according to gadget insurance provider SquareTrade, glass breakage accounts for 82 percent of its claims. The cellhelmet is competitive with SquareTrade’s own insurance program, but is slightly less expensive, applies even to used iPhones, and of course, comes with a case. Your iPhone has to be in the cellhelmet for its policy to apply, however.

Coverage lasts for one year from the time you purchase your cellhelmet, and should you ever have to claim a total device replacement, you’ll have to buy another cellhelmet, but that’s consistent with other third-party insurance programs. If all your device requires is a screen replacement after an accident, you get unlimited repairs.

For slightly more money than a stylish iPhone case, and slightly less than a third-party insurance program, you can get both by backing the Pittsburgh-based company’s project on Kickstarter. Not a bad deal, especially if you can’t seem to keep a firm grip on Apple’s beautiful but somewhat slippery smartphone designs.

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Apple has been taking preparatory steps in advance of a launch with China Telecom, China’s third largest mobile network operator. Earlier in January, Apple secured regulatory approval to sell a device in China that operates using the CDMA2000 network standard, which is the technology China Telecom uses for its 3G network. At the time, the only step remaining for Apple was to get a license from China’s Telecommunications Equipment and Certification Center to begin selling the device, which it gained on Monday this week.

Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty predicted Apple could grow its iPhone sales by as many as 57 million units in China over the next two years if it succeeds in securing partnerships with China Telecom and China Mobile. China Telecom will offer Apple a potential subscriber pool of roughly 15 million high-end subscribers according to Morgan Stanley’s numbers, approximately doubling its current reach through official partner China Unicom.

The deal hasn’t yet been confirmed by Beijing Telecom’s parent company beyond the report from China Daily, and no pricing details have been released, but the pieces are in place, and there’s little reason to suspect Apple wouldn’t want to expand its presence in China as quickly as possible. No doubt a partnership with China Mobile, which reaches 650 million subscribers and has around a 70-percent share of the Chinese mobile market, is also a priority, but technological factors likely precludes official iPhone support until Apple creates a version specifically for China Mobile’s network.

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The two big new features in the 10.0.3 update, which is free through the Mac App Store, are multicam editing, allowing users to automatically sync a maximum of 64 angles of video and photos, and a beta version of a broadcast monitoring feature that works with both Thunderbolt and PCIe cards. The removal of multi-camera editing was a major complaint among FCP 7 video editors, since it made combining photo and video from multiple camera sources a much more complicated process.

In addition to those new features, the update also brings improved image and color controls, including the introduction of color sampling, edge adjustment and light wrap editing abilities, which means you’ll be able to depend more on FCP X directly, and less on external programs like Motion when working with complex keying challenges, Apple said in its press release.

Apple also took the opportunity of the release to point out that the third-party application ecosystem for FCPX has grown considerably in recent months, and now includes tools like 7toX, which allows FCP7 projects to be imported to the newer software. The inability to import old projects in FCPX was another of the major complaints users had with the latest version.

Apple promised updates to answer a lot of user concerns with the software back when version 10.0.1 delivered XML support, and judging by a recent Ars Technica report on the continued reticence of video pros to use the software, the sooner it can deliver more updates like this one that address major pain points cited by users, the better.

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