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 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Most mobile device users will likely go through piles of device accessories that quickly become as outdated as the gadgets they’re designed for, so it’s nice to see a system that embraces and builds on its past, rather than simply starting fresh with each new whim of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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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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Enterprise mobile security provider Good Technology on Wednesday released its quarterly data report for the fourth quarter of 2011. The report detailed the progress of iOS and Android devices in enterprise activations among its customers, which include half the companies on the Fortune 100, among others. Apple’s iPhone 4S was the big winner of the quarter, nabbing the top spot as the most-activated device, followed by the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.

Credit: Good Technology

The 4S represented 31 percent of all device activations counted during the quarter, nearly matching the total for all Android handsets, which accounted for 35 percent of all smartphone activations. Apple’s iPad 2 and iPad together accounted for 94 percent of all tablet activations.

Much like we’ve seen with new consumer device purchases, the release of Apple’s iPhone 4S in October began the reversal of a trend in which new Android activations were approaching Apple’s numbers, as you can see in the chart below. From October to December, Good saw a steady monthly increase in the percentage of iOS activations, matched by a decrease in Android device activations. Good says bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies likely had a strong impact on Apple’s enterprise success with the iPhone 4S.

Credit: Good Technology

A new phone from Apple was bound to incite a buying spree, but the numbers have remained strong in the months following launch. It will be interesting to see if the trend of growth continues, both in the consumer and enterprise markets, now that the 4S has been on the market for some time.

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On Tuesday, on the company’s earnings call for the first fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company definitely has its eye on Brazil as a possible place to one day open Apple stores:

On the second country on the list of those four [China, Brazil, Russia, India], for us, would be Brazil. I think there’s a huge opportunity for us there, and we’ve more than begun to go deeper into Brazil. But I don’t want to signal that, that means that Apple retail will be there, because I don’t envision that occurring in the near term.

So it may not be thinking of building stores in the “near term,” but it’s clear Apple has plans for the country and its growing population of urban consumers with increasing buying power. Brazil is an easy choice for Apple to make its grand entrance in South America: The country of well over 200 million people has one of the best economies in South America right now, and it is seen as a prime place for foreign investment.

Apple does already have a presence in Brazil — through online sales and devices sold through carrier resellers and retail partners. And just this past quarter it finally opened up the iTunes Store to customers in the country. Also, it just so happens that this month, Apple hired a new general manager for its Latin America business, Anderson Teixeira, who is from — you guessed it — Brazil.

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Stock prices may have been buoyed by news that Apple continues to regain mobile market share based on the strength of its iPhone 4S sales. Nielsen reported Wednesday morning that since the introduction of the 4S, Apple’s share of the smartphone market has climbed steadily in the U.S. The Nielsen report’s findings are very similar to U.S. smartphone numbers released by NPD last week.

Apple also has an earnings call scheduled for Jan. 24, at which many analysts expect the company to announce record sales across its device lineups. We’ll likely see some numbers revealed early at tomorrow’s special education event in NYC on Thursday, since Apple typically spends some time at media presentations talking up recent successes and revealing information like up-to-date App Store download numbers, for example. We’ll have live coverage of that event beginning at 10 a.m. EST.

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Michael Deverett sued Apple after his new MacBook Pro, an iPod touch, cables and software were stolen from his car immediately following a purchase at the Apple Store in Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall. The grounds for his suit? Apple has “a duty of care” to warn store customers about the potential threat of theft, since, Deverett claimed, rings of thieves in the U.S. have been directly targeting Apple Store customers for some time now.

Deverett managed to settle for $2,300, roughly the cost of his stolen goods, as well as $345 in legal fees, but I tend to agree with Apple’s statement in the court filings that “[i]t would be next to impossible to warn each customer that, depending on what part of town they may drive to next, they may be the target of a theft,” and that as a result “Apple Canada does not owe a duty of care regarding stolen products, in particular if it is not notified by the owner.”

But Deverett also says that his MacBook Pro was serviced by Apple even after being reported stolen, which is a much more valid cause for concern. When similar issues regarding stolen iPhones were brought up earlier this year, however, TheNextWeb’s Matt Brian rightly pointed out the policy might have more to do with protecting employee safety than an unwillingness to help out.

Apple already provides Find My iPhone and Find My Mac tools to help those who’ve lost devices potentially recover them; that’s more than most other electronics manufacturers can currently say. Deverett seems to think that’s not enough. Does anyone else agree?

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We do indeed appear to be approaching the crucial moment, as Bloomberg reported recently that production of Apple’s next-generation tablet is now underway in earnest ahead of its official consumer availability, and the device includes LTE connectivity as well as a new, high-resolution display. Macotakara’s new report merely puts a more specific timeline on something many suspect to be imminent.

It’s worth noting Macotakara also accurately called the release timeline of the iPad 2, though they were a little off on the announcement; it had cited February as the month for the unveiling event, and March as when it would make its way to consumers, and Apple actually announced the device on March 2, 2011, and began selling it March 11. The site also said in Oct. 2011 that the iPad 3 would begin wide production in January, with release planned for March.

If you’re a user pinching pennies in advance of an iPad 3 release, budgeting for March definitely seems like the best course of action at this point.

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Credit: ifoAppleStore.com

As Apple has added to its collection of retail stores around the world, it has also been upping the ante on the stores’ design and architectural flourishes, from the 5th Avenue “cube” store in New York City to the Shanghai store with the clear glass cylinder.

Apple is getting even fancier for its proposed new flagship store in Aix en Provence, France, set to open in late 2012 or early 2013: It is doing away with walls almost entirely and going for an all-glass structure (as seen in the rendering above), with the exception of a rear wall for offices and inventory. IfoAppleStore.com reports that the glass will be “enabled by new technology developed by Apple’s glass suppliers.”

The newest store is clearly an eye-popping and accurate expression of Apple as a company in one way: It shows its love of and appreciation for design. But the design analogy of almost total transparency? Not so much.

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Generally, the suppliers listed in White’s index experience an average decline of 15 percent month-over-month in December, he said in the note. That dip seems to anticipate a similar drop in sales among certain products following the holiday shopping cycle; in 2011, for instance, Mac sales went from 4.19 million in its first fiscal quarter, which includes Christmas, to 3.76 million in its second, and iPod sales dropped from 19.45 million to 9.02 million. iPhone sales saw a modest increase, but Apple introduced the Verizon iPhone 4 in February during the second quarter, which could explain the isolated uptick.

Most analysts estimate that the quarterly results to be announced by Apple on Jan. 24 will be record-breaking, based on information like that from supplier Multi-Fineline Electronix, but White’s checks indicate Apple’s sales could be on a roll that will bear impressive results next quarter and beyond, too.

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Credit: M.I.C. Gadget

On the day Apple was set to sell the iPhone 4S for the first time in China, huge crowds gathered outside the Shanghai and Beijing stores and became so unruly Apple had to close the stores and SWAT teams were called in.

We mentioned the long lines on Thursday, and you can see from the pictures that there was likely going to be a supply problem compared to the sheer number of people who showed up to buy phones. It turns out a large percentage of those who showed up were resellers who were paid to stand in line to buy their maximum two iPhones per person in order to “resell the phones right in front of the store at a hefty premium,” according to Chinese gadget blog M.I.C. Gadget.

Writes Fortune:

According to eyewitness reports, fights broke out at Sanlitun among rival gangs of 30 to 50 ‘yellow bulls’ — migrant workers bused in by resellers and promised 120 yuan ($19) and a food allowance to stand in line. After waiting as much as 12 hours in temperatures that fell to -9°C, they were understandably angry when all they got for their trouble was their 10-yuan food allowance.

The Chinese blog M.I.C. Gadget reports that when an unidentified man with a bullhorn announced that the sale had been cancelled, the crowd chanted ‘Open the door!’ and ‘Liars!’ and began pelting the store with eggs.

According to reports, the Beijing store was supposed to open at 7 a.m. After some fights had broken out prior to that, Apple delayed the opening. That made the crowds angrier, and the raw eggs were hurled once the store decided to remain closed and not sell the phones. Pictures from the scene show that SWAT teams were called in to disperse the unruly crowd. Apple then decided to close its four other stores in China for the day.

It is still possible to buy the iPhone 4S in China, just not in a store for the time being. Instead Apple is pointing customers to its online store or carrier partners.

This is not the first time that violence has marred an Apple store event in China. A fight broke out at the same Beijing store when the white iPhone 4 first went on sale in May 2011.

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Photos from Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo clearly show huge crowds at the two Beijing and three Shanghai locations, despite temperatures between 32 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The lineups are likely for people who want to try to get an iPhone off-contract and unlocked, starting at 4,988 yuan, or around $790. Shoppers can also buy directly from China Unicom, which even has some pricing plans that allow users to pick up the hardware free, but monthly contract requirements for those subsidies are quite steep. Plus, buying unlocked makes it easier for scalpers to resell devices through unofficial channels.

When it launched in the U.S., the iPhone 4S was also greeted with long lines, and in Hong Kong, attendance at Apple’s retail flagship store numbered in the thousands. The Chinese launch of the 4S should be the biggest since it debuted in October, since China is now Apple’s second-most-important market, and according to at least one estimate, it’s conceivable that Apple sold more iPhones in China during its fiscal fourth quarter of 2011 than it did in the U.S.

The staggered launch means that sales resulting from the Chinese launch of the iPhone 4S will appear as part of Apple’s second fiscal quarter results and not those that will be reported on Jan. 24. That could help Apple post higher iPhone shipments next quarter even without the holiday bump, especially if its regulatory progress with getting a China Telecom-compatible version of the 4S to market bears fruit within the next couple of months.

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Apple’s special displays were announced alongside a program of deploying small boutiques within Target’s larger stores called the “Shops at Target,” the retailer revealed. These pop-up-type shops seem to be temporary locations that will sell Target-specific goods. The arrangement with Apple is separate from the “Shops at Target” initiative, but full details are not yet known about what exactly it includes.

Target spokeswoman Dustee Jenkins told MarketWatch that Target will “have 25 stores with unique display and assortment [of inventory]” for Apple goods, but it isn’t clear where or when the stores will appear first. We have requested more information from Target and Apple and will update this story if we find out more about what is being offered and what the timeline is for the arrival of these stores.

An in-store partnership with Target should help Apple reach more markets in areas where dedicated Apple retail locations don’t make financial sense. If they do end up resembling Best Buy mini-stores, they will be staffed with knowledgeable, Apple-specific personnel and offer Mac computers and more in addition to the iOS devices currently available at Target.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Chris Coyier

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The survey of more than 1,000 respondents conducted in November also found that Google is a strong contender for being perceived as current and relevant, since it placed second. Microsoft came in fourth, and non-tech firms occupied the majority of the remaining top 10 positions.

Ipsos notes that the “leading edge” quality has a big impact on the perception of overall brand influence, and one that serves companies well. According to Ipsos Reid President Steve Levy, “while being seen as leading edge is only one factor in brand influence it is definitely one of the most important, something that Apple has recognized and excelled at achieving.”

RIM’s absence is telling, but not unexpected. The company’s devices are no longer seen as cutting edge tech, and the brand’s image can’t be dealing with its fast-fading fortunes very well. RIM still has a huge customer base, but its significance in the important U.S. market is tanking, and doesn’t look likely to ever catch up to Android or iOS again.

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China Telecom would be the second iPhone carrier in China, joining the country’s second-largest network provider China Unicom. China Telecom would add a potential buying audience of 33.4 million mobile subscribers to China Unicom’s network of 36.5 million users. All that remains is that Apple secure a license from China’s Telecommunications Equipment and Certification Center prior to offering the device for sale.

Apple wouldn’t need to do much to offer the right hardware for the network; China Telecom uses a 3G CDMA2000 network, based on the same standard as Verizon’s mobile 3G network in the U.S. Adding the carrier officially would not only expand Apple’s reach, but also help it win back more legit channel sales from the gray market: Gartner analyst Sandy Shen told Bloomberg that as authorized sales outlets become more widely available, gray market sales dwindle.

Apple may soon face entirely different challenges in China, however, especially if it rapidly scales its potential iOS user base in the country. Recent reports indicate Apple is currently being sued by a group of Chinese writers over allegations that pirated books are being offered for sale on the App Store. The group has asked Apple to remove the books, but so far, the iPhone-maker has refused. The group plans to file another lawsuit on behalf of more authors soon, and says the problem has become rampant. The group is only seeking around $1.2 million USD in damages for this first suit, but in the long term, Apple could alienate content providers and invite continued legal trouble by ignoring the problem.

As China becomes more central to the future of Apple’s mobile market, the company will likely have to come up with new ways to address these and other unique challenges. We’ve seen that localization is key when it comes to making apps successful in Asian App Stores, so it would make sense that Apple may eventually want to set up more localized operations for dealing with Chinese App Store content as well, especially given the recent move to make the Chinese App Store open to payments using local currency.

It looks like we’ll soon see China’s iPhone use explode, above and beyond the impressive growth it’s already posting in that country. Don’t be surprised if Apple pumps up its local operations as well.

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Apple initially intends to open mini-store locations, like those it currently uses at select Best Buy locations across the U.S. and Canada, in 25 Target locations in areas where a standalone Apple Store isn’t economically viable, according to the report. Target has 1,752 stores currently operating in the U.S., more than Best Buy’s roughly 1,100 locations. Apple now has store-within-a-store setups in more than 600 of those Best Buy locations.

Target stores currently offer iOS devices, including the iPod and iPad, as well as the iPhone in stores that have Target Mobile sales centers. The rumored expansion would allow the 25 pilot stores to begin offering sales of Mac computers, as well as other Apple-branded hardware and peripherals. Bringing Macs right into the stores could help capitalize on the so-called “halo effect” of iOS devices, which sees Mac sales increase in proportion to the iPhone and iPad’s success. Customers who come in to Target for an iPhone would be more likely to at least take note of and consider a Mac purchase, too, since all those products would be available for hands-on trial in one place.

This isn’t the first time people have suspected a limited retail partnership would lead to something larger. Back in December 2008, Walmart began selling iPhones, and then in 2009, Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes suggested that along with iPod sales they would be precursors to the store-within-a-store model being adopted at Walmart locations. So far, that hasn’t happened, but there’s good reason to suspect Target is a better candidate for this kind of setup.

The main reason is that Target appeals to a different demographic than Walmart. Target’s crowd tends to be closer to Apple’s core market audience, namely middle-class buyers with more cash to spend. Selling Macs, which are for the most part much pricier than iOS devices, is a good fit for Target’s customer base, especially in places Apple’s own retail shops can’t reach.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Chris Coyier

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