Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, has reaffirmed that his company does plan to release a white iPhone “this spring.” Responding to a user question on Twitter — of all places — the VP stated, “The white iPhone will be available this spring (and it is a beauty!).” Apple is expected to release its next generation smartphone sometime in June — meaning the phone that Schiller is referring to could be the iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post with any relevant information provided.

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After Apple rejected the Google Voice app for the iPhone (or withheld the app’s release for further review, according to Apple), the Internet erupted with anger. Some folks even went as far as ditching their iPhones and moving to Android or other devices, platforms and carriers. While a move like that may have been a little drastic, we’ve all been waiting impatiently as the FCC continues to review the case in order to determine if anything was awry. In this latest addition to the soap opera, the FCC has released a previously confidential letter from Google explaining the company’s position. In a nutshell: Google claims Apple was concerned that the dialer in Google Voice would somehow replace iPhone’s native dialer. Apple also allegedly made it clear that it did not want to confuse its customers, which could be nice or extremely insulting depending on how you look at it. We’re going with the latter. Shortly after the Internet exploded in response to this new Google letter, Apple issued a rare, albeit brief, public statement: “We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google.”

[Via Ars Technica]

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A slew of Apple rumors are rolling off the press at an alarming rate. Most recent is a report from the Wall Street Journal confirming that international man of mystery Steve Jobs will be returning to Apple at the end of June. Jobs will return with a bang at a media event to coincide with a new product launch or a public event. According to the WSJ, WWDC will still be a Schiller-run show with the new iPhone taking center stage. Duh. The new iPhone is expected to be available in early July, around the two year anniversary of the first iPhone (need to snag those early adopters whose contracts are expiring), and will feature a faster processor and video editing capabilities. If that is not enough of a confirmation of a new iPhone for you then turn your eyes to the retail marketplace where the third generation handset is reportedly appearing in inventory lists from Carphone warehouse as the iPhone V3 and at AT&T support as the iPhone Video. Several purported images have also emerged, as seen above. They all jibe but of course none have been verified as authentic at this point. Last but not least, the Financial Times is reporting that Apple plans to launch a low cost version of its iPhone at WWDC, priced at $149 or $99 with a contract in order to attract those Walmart shoppers increase its market share.

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It’s official. Many expected Steve Jobs to use the WWDC keynote and impending new iPhone announcement to make his triumphant return to the helm but as it turns out, that won’t be the case. Instead, the man who would be king, Phillip Schiller, will be leading the way come June 8th according to a release this morning from Apple. The company’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing has been up to the task before and while he doesn’t quite give off the same “president of the cool kids club” vibe as Stevo, he has done a fine job. Whether or not he will do the honors and unveil Apple’s next iPhone and/or notebook/netbook/tablet remains to be seen. Will Jobs be the “one more thing” and emerge from behind a curtain holding the new iPhone while Mamma Said Knock You Out blares over the sound system? Ok, probably not… But he might still show up.

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There you have it Apple fans, Apple’s final Macworld keynote has come and gone. As expected, Steve Jobs was nowhere to be found – indeed due to health reasons as many had dismissed as false until Jobs’ recent letter was issued on Monday. Phill Schiller had some pretty big shoes to fill but he did a great job and even threw in a joke or two. As for the announcements, the only surprise was iLife ’09 and we think it was a pretty good surprise in fact. Apple looks to have made some great updates to its suite and we can’t wait to upgrade and start playing with all the new features. As far as the three other big announcements – iWork ’09, the new 17″ MacBook Pro and DRM-free iTunes – leaks did an ok job of covering each one to some extent. In terms of the massive list of rumors that weren’t made a reality today, this year’s Macworld had more rumors surrounding it than ever before so most were obviously destined to be squashed. We would have liked to have seen a refreshed iMac and Mac Mini, case manufacturers would have liked to have seen an iPhone nano and Apple’s board would have liked to have seen a more sustained and significant spike in Apple shares today. Hey, you can’t win ‘em all…

Ok, Philly Schilly has finally gotten around to the new MacBook Pro now so we’ve got all the new details for you: How does Intel Core 2 Duo 2.93GHz Dual Core, 6MB L2 Cache, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM at 1066 MHz sound to you? Oh yeah, good stuff indeed – and all wrapped in a gorgeous unibody aluminum case. The new rig is Apple Cinema display-ready and uses both NVIDIA 9400M and 9600M GT graphics chips just like the 15″ model. The glass trackpad is 39% larger and the battery supposedly lasts for a whopping eight hours with a 1,000-charge life cycle! The eight hour rating is on the 9400M chip, with the 9600M GT dropping it down to seven hours (still phenomenal) but we’ll believe it when we see it. Judging by the current MacBook performance, eight hours of juice on a single charge would be a thing of beauty. There will only be one base purchase option for the new 17″ Pro – ringing up at $2,799 for the glossy screen, 2.66 GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB 5400 rpm hard drive, glass trackpad, backlit keyboard and so on – and options such as the 2.93GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, 320GB 7200 rpm HD/128GB SSD/256GB SSD, anti-glare screen, etc will all be add-ons.

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Phil Schiller might not be wearing a black turtle neck but he’s still got some goods to dish this morning at the Macorld keynote. To kick things off, Schiller introduced a new version of iLife – iLife ’09. He showed off a newly updated version of iPhoto, featuring new “Faces” technology that will organize your photos of people, by name, using facial recognition! Select a photo and name a person once, then Faces will identify that person each time you add a new photo of him or her. Then there’s “Places”, which sorts photos according to where they were taken according to geotags. The UI features a map (street or satellite views) with pins representing the location of each photo in an album. Don’t worry if your camera doesn’t support geotagging of course, as you’ll be able to add locations manually within the UI.

iPhoto ’09 also has built in support for album syncing with both Facebook and Flickr. In fact, if people tag photos you upload in Facebook, that data will be synced back to your Mac so the info can be viewed locally! Very smooth Apple, very smooth. Other new features include themes, which allow you to add visual themes to slide shows that include backgrounds and even custom transitions. Slide shows can also be added to iTunes and synced to your iPhone or iPod. Another interesting addition is Travel Books, which allow you to create a cool-looking scrap book out of a series of photos.

Next up is iMovie ’09 which definitely offers some cool new features. Image stabilization for one – because not everyone has Hollywood-worthy filming skills. There is also a new precision editor interface, a bunch of cool video effects and a user friendly drag and drop update that allows you to simply drop a clip on a specific point and have the video inserted instantly. Apple also added video themes with some very nifty 3D effects that will be very fun to play with. The new ’09 version of iMovie is definitely more advanced than the ’08 version but it also seems well-designed to the point where even novice users will be able to take full advantage of its functionality.

Now we come to GarageBand ’09 – with a noteworthy new feature called “Learn to Play”. Think of it as a private music instructor that provides personal lessons, at your pace, in an effort to teach you how to play your instrument of choice. Did they include the bassoon in there? There is also an “Artist Lessons” feature which showcases various artists, such as John Fogerty and Sting, who help teach you how to play their songs.

The complete package will still ship for free on new Macs starting in late January and an upgrade can be purchased by existing customers for $79, or $99 for an upgrade good on five computers. Nice start Apple, we definitely didn’t see that one coming. Let’s see what Cupertino has lined up next…

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Oops! We’re minutes away from Apple’s keynote featuring Phil “I am not Steve Jobs” Schiller and we’ve already got our second major bungle. The team back in Cupertino apparently got a little trigger happy and let the 17″ MacBook Pro page go live a tad ahead of schedule. Woo! 4GB of RAM out of the box, 320GB+ hard drive, up to 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor… This baby is a killer! You’ve also got a Firewire-400 and a Firewire-800 port so none of those MacBook complaints are an issue for Pro users. Hit the read link for the live page and get ready for more Apple goodness coming any minute now.

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