Transit Directions Icon for iOS Maps Briefly Shown in Apple WWDC Session Slides

While improvements such as transit directions had been part of the early rumors for iOS 8, a follow-up report from 9to5Mac on May 1 had indicated that the feature might not make the cut for initial versions of iOS 8 as Apple was pulling resources from the iOS team to work on what would be introduced as OS X Yosemite.

Indeed, Maps improvements went essentially unmentioned at the WWDC keynote last week, and sources speaking to TechCrunch outlined “internal politics” including the departure of several key members of the Maps team as one of the reasons for Maps improvements not being ready for a WWDC presentation or inclusion in the initial iOS 8 beta.

As highlighted by BGR, one developer spotted a slide in an Apple WWDC session video showing an iPad version of the Maps app with a “bus” icon in the center of the bottom toolbar. While it is unsurprising that Apple is indeed working on transit directions for Maps given previous rumors and Apple’s several corporate acquisitions in the area over the past year or two, the inclusion of a slide showing the feature suggests that discussion of the transit features may indeed have been a fairly late cut from the keynote presentation.

The screenshot, which can be seen above, shows an icon of a train or a bus at the bottom center of the screen, which presumably indicates transit directions. It comes from the session titled “Power, Performance and Diagnostics: What’s new in GCD and XPC,” and BGR was pointed to it by Jesper.

Interestingly, Apple has moved quickly to address the errant inclusion of the screenshot showing a transit-enabled Maps app and has already pulled the session video and slides from the developer website.

Apple’s scheduling plans for transit directions in Maps are still not entirely clear, as there is still plenty of time of the feature to be added during the beta testing period prior to public launch, which is expected around September. Alternatively, the feature could be held back for a later update such as an iOS 8.1 to give Apple more time to polish it.

Target Offering Non-Retina Wi-Fi iPad Mini for $199 In-Store for Father’s Day [iOS Blog]

As part of its Father’s Day promotional push, Target is offering the 16 GB non-Retina Wi-Fi iPad mini for just $199 in either white or space gray, a savings of $100 over Apple’s standard pricing. The offer is only valid in-store, although customers can purchase online for store pickup. Quantities do, however, appear to be very limited, as most stores are currently showing no available stock.

The discounted pricing is valid through June 14, so customers looking to take advantage of the big discount should check back frequently if their local stores are currently out of stock.

(Thanks, Steve!)

Apple Stock Splits 7-for-1, Opens at $92 With All-Time High Just Over $100

This morning, Apple’s stock underwent a 7-for-1 split, awarding 6 additional shares to each shareholder of record at 5PM PDT on Friday. Simultaneously, the price of the stock has been divided by 7 and should open around $92 after closing on Friday at $645.

Apple’s all-time high stock price, reached in September 2012, is $705 or $100.72 post-split.

Apple’s stock has split on three previous occasions, on a 2-for-1 basis, in 1987, 2000 and 2005. Apple has said that it wanted to make its stock “more accessible” to a wider variety of customers, but Apple could also be aiming for inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average index. The Dow is price-weighted, meaning Apple’s previous stock price of nearly $700 would have resulted in an significant reweighting of the index and a $92 would put it in the right price range for inclusion.

As the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, with a market cap of more than $550 billion, Apple could be a logical addition for the index. It would join a number of other high-tech companies listed including Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon.

Apple went public on December 12, 1980 for $22 per share. Accounting for its four stock splits, Apple’s stock cost roughly $0.39286 per share at IPO, giving a return of roughly 23,400% over 33.5 years.

Lack of Maps Updates in iOS 8 Said to be Caused by ‘Internal Politics’, Developers Leaving

Leading up to last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, various reports suggested that Apple would be significantly improving its Maps application in iOS 8, enhancing the underlying infrastructure that powers the application and adding public transit directions from acquired mapping companies HopStop and Embark.

However, while last week’s keynote included a lot of new information about iOS 8, Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi mentioned no improvements to Maps aside from enhanced maps in China and the addition of vector-based mapping.

Now, a report from TechCrunch sheds new light as to why iOS 8 does not feature significant improvements to Maps, with an inside source noting that “many developers left the company,” as map improvements for iOS 8 were not finished in time. The source added that tasks were “very badly planned”, with developers having to jump from “project to project”.

The report also gives an account from another source at Apple:

It’s a take that is both contested and corroborated by our other source. “I would say that planning, project management and internal politics issues were a much more significant contributor to the failure to complete projects than developers leaving the group,” the source said.

Apple originally introduced its Maps app in iOS 6 as it looked to move away from Google Maps. However, Apple’s Maps drew a significant amount of criticism over inaccuracies in mapping data, errors in locating points of interest, a lack of transit information, and bizarre 3D mapping. Apple CEO Tim Cook even issued a public apology to iOS owners over the ordeal, stating the company was “extremely sorry” for the frustration it had caused and promised “non-stop” work to fix the app.

Beats Expands ‘iBeats’ Trademark to Cover Digital Music Downloads, Streaming Music [iOS Blog]

Beats has had a trademark on the term “iBeats” for several years, and has produced iBeats in-ear headphones in collaboration with Monster, but recently, the company filed a new application to expand the iBeats trademark to include new music-related uses.

Initially covering only audio video equipment such as headphones, clothing, music performances, and various advertising methods, the trademark has now been expanded to also encompass areas such as broadcasting, social networking, digital music downloads, and streaming music.

Audio recordings featuring music; video recordings featuring music; downloadable audio and video recordings featuring music, music performances, and music videos; prerecorded music, namely, digital downloads; user interface for television and video on demand communications equipment; Computer software for use in the delivery, distribution and transmission of digital music and entertainment-related audio, video, text and multimedia content; computer software for enabling transmission, storage, sharing, collection, editing, organizing and modifying audio, video, messages, images and other data for use in social networking, online chats and interactive gaming, for use in creating social networking databases and for use in social networking database management; computer software for creating searchable databases of information and data for peer-to-peer social networking databases; Gift cards, namely, magnetically encoded gift cards.

Beats Electronics filed the new application on April 25, likely at a time when it was in talks with Apple over an acquisition. It is unknown why Beats has expanded its iBeats trademark, but it is possible that the company has plans for new products and services under the name.

Apple officially announced its $3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics on May 28, and the deal is expected to be finalized during the fourth fiscal quarter. The acquisition includes both the Beats hardware business, which encompasses its lineup of headphones, and the Beats Music streaming service.

Apple Acquires Social Recommendation Service Spotsetter

Apple has acquired Spotsetter, a social search engine designed to offer personalized recommendations on places to visit, reports TechCrunch. The Spotsetter app, which has now been removed from the App Store, offered personal recommendations for “great venues to eat, play, drink, and shop” via existing social networks.

The app integrated with social networks like Facebook to aggregate data on locations recommended by friends, and it included results personalized for an individual’s “taste and trust.”

Using the app, you could look up any place, category or keyword, then be presented with personalized results, as well as see what your friends had said about the places around you. The app would also highlight which of your friends were experts in a given area, like coffee or shopping or sushi, for example — and you could tag your friends as experts in order to influence the recommendations. In addition, you could use Spotsetter to discover new places, by browsing the map to see where your friends have been and what they’ve shared.

The end result was a social search engine built on top of a mapping interface.

Spotsetter announced plans to shut down its app six days ago, but did not give a reason for the removal. Its co-founders, Stephen Tse and Johnny Lee are now listed as Apple employees on LinkedIn, however.

With fondest emotions, I’m announcing that we are closing down Spotsetter app. We still have big dreams for personalized search for places and look forward to seeing great progress in this area. Thank you everyone for your support over the past years!

According to TechCrunch, Apple may be planning to use Spotsetter’s technology, which layered social data on a maps interface, to bolster its Maps app with location recommendations. The deal, for an unspecified amount, was said to focus mainly on the technology and the talent of Spotsetter’s founders.

Apple to Offer New Contract-Free Plan Options for iPhones in U.S. Retail Stores [iOS Blog]

Apple is planning to bolster its in-store iPhone sales in the United States by allowing customers to add pre-paid or month-to-month plans when purchasing full-priced, unlocked iPhones, according to a source that spoke to 9to5Mac.

Currently, iPhone customers who pay the full price to purchase unlocked iPhones from Apple retail locations must visit a carrier store or use a pre-activated SIM card to get service on their phones, but following the policy change, those plans will be available directly through the Apple Store.

Apple Stores will stock AT&T GoPhone pre-paid activation kits and T-Mobile SIM cards for both T-Mobile and AT&T pre-paid plans, with employee training taking place over the next few weeks.

Sales staff will promote ATT’s $60 per month pre-paid plan (with 2.5GB of internet data and unlimited talk and text) to those seeking AT&T plans, while the stores will offer $50/month (1GB LTE data) and $70/month (5GB LTE data) unlimited data plans to customers seeking T-Mobile devices. The activations must be done at the time of purchase in Apple Stores and those devices will be unable to be returned to Apple for a refund.

The new pre-paid and month-to-month plans may be available at Apple Stores during the last week of June and are likely part of a push to move more device sales in store. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that 80 percent of iPhones are sold at third-party locations while 20 percent are sold in by Apple, a figure he would like to improve.

Apple has launched several other programs to improve in-store sales, including a recent iPhone upgrade event encouraging iPhone 4 and 4s owners to update to a newer device.