Catch up on all of Apple's tax controversy here as both CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer gear up to testify in front of Congress to address Apple's billions in foreign-stored cash.

Livestream of Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer at today's congressional hearing originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 May 2013 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | ...

Football fans rejoice (that's soccer for you in America)! Sky Sports has released an update to its popular iPad app that offers a new feature called Sky Sports 360. It lets you switch between over 20 camera angles during a replay. The app also allows you to choose to view the replays at normal speed or in slow motion. Announcing the new feature, David Gibbs, Director of Sky Sports Digital Media, told Sky Sports:

"This is great news for the Sky Sports for iPad app, which keeps getting better and better. This is about putting the technology into the hands of the viewer and allowing them to recapture the big moments in the final. It's the first time we've offered this through our app and it's another example of our investment in the Sky...

Your Wi-Fi is about to get faster.

Which is never a bad thing.

Per 9to5Mac, additional evidence has surfaced indicating that Apple’s incoming next round of MacBook Air/Pros would contain 802.11AC Gigabit wifi chips, not the least of which was code we found referencing ’802.11AC‘ in 10.8.4 Betas.

Reader TonyMacx86, found some interesting parts on...

This is an excellent deal for any iOS owners who are fans of football and video games. EA is releasing the 25th iteration of the Madden football games this year, called Madden 25. And in that box, which costs a standard $60, there will be a deal with DirecTV and the NFL to set up streaming to your television, your PC and consoles, or any mobile devices you have. The NFL has been stepping up on streaming game coverage to iOS over the last year or so, and usually services like that can cost a couple of hundred dollars.

To get the deal, you'll have to preorder the Anniversary Edition of Madden 25 (which costs $100)...

This could prove useful.

Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog and The Verge, wireless carrier AT&T has indicated that all iPhone subscribers will be able to use FaceTime via a cellular connection by the end of 2013, as stated below:

“For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we currently give all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share or Tiered plans. Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry have chosen to enable this for their pre-loaded video chat apps. And by mid-June, we’ll have enabled those...

Poser has come a long way from the last time I used it, right around version 4. We're now at 10 for the basic edition (retail US$299.99) and Poser Pro 2014 (retail $499.99) has become a powerful animation tool in its own right. I got to look at some of the new features rolling out today and they are impressive, putting Poser on par with many animation and modeling suites costing much more.

A problem with any humanoid character is how the "skin" folds when you bend it. Poser now offers Pixar's OpenSubdiv libraries, which means subdivision surfaces anywhere you need them. I was impressed with the accuracy and speed at which Poser created subdivisions, which add greatly to the realism already available in Poser. There are also some new characters, both realistic and cartoonish, to help get you started. For basic work the stock characters will keep you busy for quite a while, but there's also a great third party...

The U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations claims Apple has avoided paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes by using offshore entities. “Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” subcommittee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement. “Apple sought the Holy…

AT&T has reversed its stance blocking FaceTime video chats over cell signals and will begin supporting that, along with all pre-loaded video chat apps, over LTE without any service plan restrictions before the end of the year. Currently, AT&T allows FaceTime video chats on its data network only for subscribers on shared family data plans.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Better late than never, but AT&T should've had this policy in place from the beginning.

In opening remarks of a hearing Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused Apple of being the mastermind of elaborate tax avoidance practices that are unique to the iPhone maker.  ...

Update: Live coverage of the Senate hearing on Apple’s offshore tax practices is above.

As things heat up in the row on alleged tax avoidance by Apple, Ireland has denied a claim made by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that it had agreed a special deal with the company to allow it to pay corporation tax of just 2% on its Irish earnings.

The denial was made to Yahoo! Finance reporter Conor Humphries:

According to the congressional report, Ireland had also agreed a special 2 percent rate for Apple’s Irish taxable profits...

There have been plenty of hints over the past months that indicate that Apple’s incoming next round of MacBook Air/Pros would contain 802.11AC Gigabit wifi chips, not the least of which was code we found referencing ’802.11AC‘ in 10.8.4 Betas.

TonyMacx86, found some interesting parts on Chinese VR-Zone today that could be the next 802.11AC boards in Macs, widely expected to be announced at WWDC next month. The Broadcom BCM94360CD PCI-E mini custom combo WLAN+Bluetooth...

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, joined the team at The Mac Show to talk about Apple's tax payment practices and the U.S. Senate hearing where CEO Tim Cook will be testifying.

The Chrome App Launcher is coming to OSX, providing a simple way to launch Chrome ‘packaged apps’ – web apps that are written in a combination of HTML5, Javascript and CSS but which look and behave like conventional PC or Mac apps …

//

Google Chrome team member François Beaufort, who has the whacky job title of Happiness Evangelist (some Google employees get to pick their own job titles), posted the screengrab on his Google+ page.

Chrome Team is currently working on bringing the App Launcher on the Mac platform as you can see in the screenshot below.

You can already give it a try by running the last chromium build available at download-chromium.appspot.com with the –show-app-list switch.

To see it in action, you’ll need to...

With Apple under fire for its low international tax rate thanks to corporate subsidiaries housed in Ireland, the Irish government has spoken out on the matter, saying its laws are not to blame.  ...

In the aftermath of the devastating tornado that cut a path of destruction through Oklahoma City on Monday, wireless carrier AT&T announced that overage charges would be suspended for the area until June 30 as part of an effort to assist victims, many of whom lost everything. Due to high call volumes as friends and family check on their loved ones, the company said it would add additional resources to relieve cell congestion....  ...

Designers of operating systems can't think of everything that should be in their programs. Utilities are a testament to that. Utilities are software programs that do things that should have been included in an operating system, but weren't. They can help you keep your system performing at top speed, solve irritating problems or just keep valuable information at your fingertips. For example, you might want to have the windows on your desktop placed just so when you're working.

View Magazine is a nicely put-together coffee table ebook for the iPad or iPhone that contains photos that are interesting and certainly not run-of-the-mill sunsets and flowers. A variety of photographers have combined to submit some of their favorite work, and they offer some commentary about the images.

There are shots of urban landscapes, people, and nature images, but none are what I would call the standard 'pretty pictures'. That said, the images are striking, and the thoughts behind the images are often illuminating. You won't like everything you see, but there is plenty to choose from.

VIEW Magazine used to require a paid subscription, but it has just gone free, and you can manually download an issue or set it up for automatic downloading to Apple's Newsstand app.

I found the content stimulating and interesting. Any image can be shared to Facebook or via email. You scroll...

Welcome South Australia to the Apple Store family.  The Rundle Place Centre Apple Store will open at 10am local time on Saturday May 25th.

An anonymous tipster from the area sent in the above image which is supposed to be the store before opening.

//

A new Senate report (PDF from The New York Times) shows that Apple has been employing potentially sketchy business methods to avoid heavier tax burdens. According to the investigation, the company did dodged billions in potential taxes on $44 billion in foreign income during the past four years.

Some of the interesting bits from the Senate's report: three Apple subsidiaries in Ireland claim no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country. Apple Operations International, one of the Ireland three, reported $30 billion in income during 2009 to 2012 despite having no employees and not filing income taxes anywhere within the last five years. Apple did not violate any laws during this time according to the Senate investigation.

As...

It isn’t quite Stanford 2005, but the Corning stories and others are amusing.

//

Yahoo, which had dropped off the important BrandZ Top 100 ranking several years ago, scratched its way on again this year at No. 92.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant had last been on the key list of brands in 2009, when it had a brand value of $7.9 billion. It now has a brand value of $9.8 billion, which is still down from its $11.4 billion in 2008.

And that’s tiny in comparison to Apple, which remains No. 1 on the list, with a brand value of $185.1 billion. Google ranked as No. 2, with a brand value of $113.7 billion.

Apple rival Samsung’s brand value rose by by 51 percent to $21.4 billion, clocking in at the No. 30 spot.

In tech, Amazon’s brand value was $45.7 billion, rising 34 percent to No. 14. IBM is No. 3 with a brand value of $112 billion.

And more: Microsoft (No. 7, $69.8 billion, down 9 percent); Facebook (No. 31, $21.3 billion, down 36 percent); and eBay (No....

In a statement provided to The Verge, AT&T has indicated that all iPhone subscribers will be able to use FaceTime via a cellular connection by the end of 2013.

For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we currently give all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share or Tiered plans. Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry have chosen to enable this for their pre-loaded video chat apps. And by mid-June, we'll have enabled those apps over cellular for our unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices from those three manufacturers. Throughout the second half of this year, we plan to enable pre-loaded video chat apps over cellular for all our customers, regardless of data plan or device; that work is expected to be complete by year end. Today, all of our customers can use any mobile...

Apple has been making moves over the last year to expand its market share in India after its net profit for their India devision increased 431 percent year to year. Tripling the amount of franchise stores in the country? Check. Trade-in incentives? Check. Now the incentives are continuing with expansions for college students and American Express customers.

The first incentive is designed to draw students into picking up an iPhone. Currently non-student residents who trade-in their smartphones for an iPhone get 7,000 rupees (US$130). Students, however, get 7,777 rupees (around $144) for their trade-in.

Apple's other new incentive is targeted at American Express owners and offers 10% cash back towards the purchase of an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 before June 10th. The maximum refund...

Samsung Display announced today that it is showcasing several mobile to extra-large-sized display prototypes at the Society for Information Display's Display Week. These include a Full HD 1920×1080 mobile AMOLED 4.99-inch display with the world's broadest color gamut, a 10.1-inch 2560 x 1600 LCD for tablets, and a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800 LCD for notebooks....  ...

No surprise they’re in Dubai.

∞ Read this on The Loop

In the wake of Apple's published testimony, US Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) have released their own joint statement on the work of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "Apple Inc. has used a complex web of offshore entities -- including three foreign subsidiaries the company claims are not tax resident in any nation -- to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes," Levin's office writes....  ...

As part of a special media event on Monday, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled major changes to photo management and sharing service Flickr, with full resolution image support, 1 terabyte of storage for each user, and a revamped user interface.  ...

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Subscribe via RSS

Daily Update for May 20, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 20 May 2013 17:45:00 EST. Please see our...

Facebook has brought a native Share Dialog for iOS out of beta via an updated SDK, v3.5.1. The change means that third-party iOS 6 apps will be able to share activity to Facebook without always requiring a login first. People should also be able to tag friends from within those apps....  ...

Just hours after Apple published the full testimony which CEO Tim Cook plans to give to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the U.S. Senate, the government body issued its own findings on the company's offshore tax practices, saying subsidiaries were used to purposefully avoid paying billions of dollars in domestic taxes.  ...

Tired of the same old keyboard design and looking for something a bit different? The Penclic Mini Keyboard K2 (US$69.95) definitely fits the bill in terms of not being the typical keyboard, and as you'll see in this review that's not necessarily a good thing.

Design and Functionality

When I think of Scandinavian design, I usually think of sleek minimalist wooden furniture. The Swedish-designed Penclic Mini Keyboard K2 comes in black (unless you're looking at the company's website, where the keyboard is white), and definitely has a different look to it. It's about the same width and depth of the Apple Wireless Keyboard, but with a top end that swoops up. It's striking but difficult to describe; if that description makes no sense to you, just take a look at the photos. That thick top end is where the batteries -- a pair...

Apple has set up three foreign subsidiaries that the company claims are not resident in any nation for taxing purposes, in an effort to avoid paying tens of billions of dollars in taxes to the U.S. and other countries, according to a new report from a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

Apple has set up a “complex web” of offshore entities to avoid paying taxes, with some subsidiaries set up in low-tax Ireland, according to a report released Monday by the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

One of the subsidiaries set up by Apple has paid no corporate income tax to any nation for the past five years, although it reported $30 billion in net income from 2009 to 2012, the report said. Another subsidiary has paid a tax rate to Ireland of one-tenth of 1 percent or less in 2009, 2010 and 2011, far below the normal Irish corporate income tax rate of 12 percent, according to the subcommittee report.

Apple has...

Apple Inc. has set up corporate structures that have allowed it to pay little or no corporate tax—in any country—on much of its overseas income, according to the findings of a U.S. Senate examination released Monday evening.

The unusual result is possible because the iPhone maker’s key foreign subsidiaries argue they are residents of nowhere, according to the investigators’ report, which will be discussed at a hearing on Tuesday where Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will testify.

The finding comes from a lengthy investigation into the technology giant’s tax practices by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Congrats to everyone involved. This is a great look at Tumblr from the inside.

∞ Read this on The Loop

A TUAW staffer recently asked if there were a way to snapshot the exact same region of the screen over and over at timed intervals without buying third-party software.

There is, but it depends on your comfort with the command line. If you're experienced in Unix scripting, read on. If not, you may want to investigate standalone screen-capture apps instead.

I pointed him to /usr/sbin/screencapture. This built-in OS X utility allows you to specify a screen region to capture. For example, to capture a 50x200 rectangle starting at the point 200, 200, you'd say:
% /usr/sbin/screencapture -R"200,200,50,200" ~/Desktop/foo.png
You can easily apply a Unix shell script to create numbered output files. Unix commands will also enable you to sleep and repeat the capture requests over time.

The utility is Retina-ready. Since it captures in points (and not pixels), the results are twice as big in each dimension when run on Retina systems.

...

Speaking at tonight's Yahoo press event in New York City, Marissa Mayer and Yahoo's Mobile Engineering Senior Vice President and Flickr product manager Adam Cahan revealed the new Flickr and accompanying new Android app, offering users 1TB of photo storage in a "very metro" user interface....   ...

Apple is testing 1.5-inch OLED touchscreens for use in its upcoming smartwatch, claims Taiwanese publication the Economic Daily News. Apple is in fact said to have tried 1.8-inch screens, but judged that they were too big. The 1.5-inch panels are reportedly being manufactured by Taiwan's RiTdisplay, and use one-glass-solution touch sensors, which should allow Apple to keep the watch thin....  ...

At a media event in New York today, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced a new office in Times Square for the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

“From one Mayor to another,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Mayer (get it?) about locating in Manhattan’s iconic location, which will house 500 Yahoo employees.

But not Tumblr, which will remain blissfully downtown, even after its $1.1 billion all-cash acquisition by Yahoo announced today.

“We’re very happy that Tumblr is a home-grown company,” said Bloomberg,

Irony alert: Yahoo’s new digs in the Big Apple is actually the old HQ of the New York Times.

“Twenty years ago there were a lot of Yahoos in New York,” said the Bloomberg, channeling Jackie Mason and then touting the local tech industry and reeling off the stats.

...

A few months ago I reviewed an external hard drive enclosure I was pretty fond of -- the Mercury On-The-Go-Pro. Today I want to tell you about one I like even more: The Oyen Digital MiniPro enclosure. The two enclosures actually are very similar in functionality. They both allow you to take your old laptop hard drives, insert them into the enclosure, and turn those old drives into useful spare external drives. They also both offer one USB 3.0 port and two Firewire 800 ports. The reason I like the Oyen Digital MiniPro more, however, is because its design mirrors the Mac Pro. It's made from a solid aluminum housing that Mac Pro users know and love. Because of this, it actually looks like it was designed by Apple. The enclosure is also bus-powered, so no power cord is required.

The Oyen Digital...

AT&T has made a statement suggesting the carrier will allow all mobile video chat apps over cellular on its network by the end of the year. In a statement made to The Verge, AT&T said that pre-loaded Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry’s video chat apps will be enabled by mid-June…

Apple has released a document containing CEO Tim Cook’s testimony ahead of his scheduled appearance tomorrow before US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Responding to questions about the company keeping more than $100 billion overseas, Apple used the testimony to state that it does not use tax gimmicks, and…

AT&T has made a statement regarding the future of video chat applications on its LTE network. According to the telecom company, all "pre-loaded video chat apps" will be available for all of its wireless customers "regardless of data plan or device" by the end of the year. The move is a turnaround from previous decisions by the company to prohibit use of FaceTime and now Google Hangouts chat on mostly grandfathered unlimited data plans....  ...

A day ahead of CEO Tim Cook's planned appearance in front of the US Senate, Apple has published its official testimony (PDF) for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the document, the company lobbies for corporate tax reform, specifically arguing that the government should be "revenue neutral, eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, lower corporate income tax rates; and implement a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows free movement of capital back to the US." Apple has roughly $100 billion in overseas cash, which it has refused to repatriate unless it can pay l... ...

From 9to5Toys.com:

Are you ready for some football?  Last Friday our 9to5Toys team discovered an Amazon exclusive preorder bonus that will make most gamers’ wives and girlfriends cringe.

The first 50,000 orders of Madden 25 for the...

When Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook testifies before the U.S. Senate this week, he will make his case for comprehensive corporate tax reform, arguing that the current tax system actually undermines the competitiveness of American companies.   ...

Great that Apple made this public.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple on Monday published in full the formal testimony that Chief Executive Tim Cook plans to give before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the U.S. Senate.  ...

Everyone who's into theatrical movies knows the drill: what do I want to see next?  What have I already seen? What's available now in theaters? iTunes? What's coming out soon? Let's view the trailer. And so on. ToDoMovies is an iPhone app that manages all that beautifully, and it's a must for movie fans.