Apple Loses Chief of Security Over Lost iPhone Prototype

Those paying attention will no doubt remember the story about one unlucky fellow who received a visit from the police, along with a team of security personnel from Apple. Well, it turns out that the fallout from that visit isn’t yet over, with Apple losing its Vice President of Global Security over the matter.y.

Apple allegedly lost yet another iPhon prototype recently, and using the power of Find My iPhone they decided it was in the possession of a Bernal Heights resident. Apple and the San Francisco Police then rolled up to the guy’s house and asked for it back. Apple’s security team even offered to buy it back, but alas, the man in question didn’t have it…
Since then, there have been claims and counterclaim galore about just what went on, and whether the Apple security team claimed to be members of the police force or not. It’s all a little murky from here on in, but suffice it to say, the case isn’t going away just yet.

Now, Apple’s Vice President of Global Security, Joh Theriault, has retired from Apple, according to 9to5Mac. The report has been confirmed by AllThingsD.

Apple is notoriously secretive when it comes to its prototypes, and losing two in 18 months is a huge embarrassment.

The lost iPhone 4S prototype was never found, just to add insult to injury.

Sn0wBreeze Gets Updated for iOS 5.0.1 Beta 2

It seems it was only yesterday that were telling you Sn0wBreeze had been updated for iOS 5.0.1 beta. Oh wait, it was just yesterday!

With the release of iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 earlier today, iOS hacker iH8Sn0w has updated his Sn0wBreeze jailbreak tool to version v2.8b10 making it compatible with the latest beta firmware version…
This is the full changelog:

===============================
sn0wbreeze v2.8 [BETA 10]:
===============================
* Supports iOS 5.0 (9A334)/5.0.1-b2 (9A404)
* Fixed iBooks sandbox crashing issues (as of 2.8b9).
* Fixed location services issues with iPhone 3GS
users running the iPad baseband (as of 2.8b9).
* Re-added iPad baseband install option to iPhone 3GS.
* Removes UDID requirement/Beta timer in 5.0.1.
* Tethered devices are booted via iBooty which is
extracted to the Desktop after running sn0wbreeze.
===============================
Tethered?
===============================
- iPhone 3GS (old bootrom)…NO
- iPhone 3GS (new bootrom)..YES
- iPhone 4 (GSM)…………YES
- iPhone 4 (CDMA)………..YES
- iPod Touch 3G………….YES
- iPod Touch 4…………..YES
- iPad 1G……………….YES
===============================

************************************************
** iPhone 3GS iPad baseband (06.15.00) users: **
************************************************
- Re-flash the iPad baseband via sn0wbreeze
if you restore(d) to a stock 5.0 firmware.
************************************************

Now available at: http://ih8sn0w.com/

// iH8sn0w

Although it’s been confirmed to work with iOS 5.0.1 beta 2, RedSn0w hasn’t been updated yet, but we assume it’s just a matter of time.

iOS 5.0.1 Beta 2 Will Expire on December 14

Hot on the heels of the release of iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 to developers, iOS hacker extraordinaire iH8Sn0w just gave us the heads up on the expiration date of the beta firmware.

According to iH8Sn0w, iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 will expire on December 14th, at 8pm EST. Concretely, this means that you will have to update your firmware before that time, or your device will be completely useless until you restore…
iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 was seeded this morning to developers. We have already confirmed that it can be jailbroken using RedSn0w, which we have demonstrated on video.


Apple’s Supply Chain Secrets Revealed

Have you ever wondered how Apple maintains such high profit margins on products like the iPad? The company manages to do so in an industry where other manufacturers like HP and Amazon reportedly take losses on their tablet sales.

Perhaps the biggest factor in Apple’s operational success is the recently-named CEO Tim Cook. Cook spent the last decade turning Apple into a well-oiled machine. Bloomberg reveals this and more in a recent article about Apple’s supply chain secrets…
The report contains several interesting tales about the Cupertino company’s impressive operations. At one point, Apple spent $50 million dollars to buy up all available air freight space just before the holidays to ensure its iMacs would ship on time.

There’s another story about the time that Johnny Ive came up with the idea to put a green LED light in Apple’s new line of MacBooks. But the only way to achieve this was to purchase and modify some expensive lasers. Well Apple didn’t just buy a few of them, it bought hundreds of the $250,000 machines — enough to gain exclusivity on the lasers so no other manufacturers could use them.

Here’s an excerpt from the article that summarizes Apple’s supply chain success:

“Apple has built a closed ecosystem where it exerts control over nearly every piece of the supply chain, from design to retail store. Because of its volume—and its occasional ruthlessness—Apple gets big discounts on parts, manufacturing capacity, and air freight. “Operations expertise is as big an asset for Apple as product innovation or marketing,” says Mike Fawkes, the former supply-chain chief at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and now a venture capitalist with VantagePoint Capital Partners. “They’ve taken operational excellence to a level never seen before.”

That’s why Apple rakes in over half of the entire mobile market’s profits. That’s why so many people think it’s possible that Apple could enter the typically-low profit margin TV market and change the game. And that’s why Apple is currently the number two company in the world by market cap. Operations.