Publisher Simon & Schuster said the highly anticipated tell-all biography, written by acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson, will include Wednesday night’s announcement from Jobs’ point of view.

Simon & Schuster spokeswoman Tracey Guest told PCMag that Isaacson “speaks to Jobs regularly and is still working on the final chapter of the book.”

The biography, simply titled “Steve Jobs”, is the first authorized look at Steve Jobs’ life. It is being written by former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and is based on over 40 interviews with Jobs and additional interviews with over 100 colleagues, friends, and family members. Jobs has offered his complete cooperation with the effort, making no subject off-limits and not requesting the right to review material before publication.

Here are the top five best-selling phones during Q2, via NPD’s Mobile Phone Track service:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. HTC Inspire 4G
5. Samsung INTENSITYII

Apple has attempted to keep sales momentum for the iPhone 4 moving forward with the introduction of a CDMA version on Verizon and the much-delayed launch of a white version of the device earlier this year. But even as Apple has diverged from its usual annual cycle of iPhone releases by pushing the iPhone 5 out to September or October this year, the iPhone 4 and even the iPhone 3GS continue to top the charts in U.S. sales.

iOS 4.3.5 Software Update

Fixes a security vulnerability with certificate validation.

The new version checks in as Build 8L1, and is for the GSM iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, all iPads, and the third- and-fourth-generation iPod touch. A separate iOS 4.2.10 (Build 8E600) is available for the CDMA iPhone.

Direct download links:
- iPhone 4 GSM
- iPhone 4 CDMA (iOS 4.2.10)
- iPhone 3GS
- iPad 2 Wi-Fi
- iPad 2 GSM
- iPad 2 CDMA
- Original iPad
- iPod touch (fourth-generation)
- iPod touch (third-generation)

Update: Some users are reporting receiving errors when attempting to connect to Apple’s servers for the update, but with repeated attempts it seems as though users are able to get through.

Update 2: Apple has now posted a support document describing the security issue patched in the update. The issue has been given an identifier of CVE-2011-0228.

Impact: An attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS

Description: A certificate chain validation issue existed in the handling of X.509 certificates. An attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS. Other attacks involving X.509 certificate validation may also be possible. This issue is addressed through improved validation of X.509 certificate chains.

Apple shipped 3.95 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a unit increase of 14 percent over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 20.34 million, up 142 percent from the year-ago quarter, and the company also sold 7.54 million iPods during the quarter, representing 20 percent unit decline over the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, up 183 percent over the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”

Apple’s guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 includes expected revenue of $25 billion and earnings per diluted share of $5.50.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q3 2011 financial results conference call at 2:00 PM Pacific, and MacRumors will update this story with coverage of the conference call highlights.

Conference Call Highlights:

- Highest quarterly revenue and profits. Record iPhone and iPad sales and highest June quarter Mac sales ever.
- Operating margin was a record high.
- 57% year-over-year Mac growth in Pacific segment.
- OS X Lion launching tomorrow
- iPod/iTunes continue to lead market. iTunes revenue up 36% year-over-year.
- Over 225 million accounts, leading music retailer.
- Thrilled to sell record 20.3 million iPhones. 142% growth, more than double IDC’s estimate of overall smartphone market.
- Asia Pacific sales almost quadrupled over last year.
- Ended quarter with 5.9 million in channel inventory, up about 700,000 over last quarter.
- 91% of Fortune 500 testing or deploying iPhone; 57% of Global 500.
- iPad sales up 183%, sold every iPad we could make.
- Launched iPad 2 in 36 new countries, now in total of 64 countries.
- 1.05 million iPads in channel inventory, up about 200,000…well below target range.
- Over 222 million cumulative iOS device sales
- In June, we previewed iOS 5 and iCloud. Both launching this fall.
- App Store booming…425,000 apps, 15 billion downloads. $2.5 billion paid out to developers.
- Retail stores: $3.5 billion, up 36% year-over-year. 50% of Mac purchasers new to Mac.
- 327 total stores, with four opened during the quarter
- 73.7 million visitors, up from 60.5 million year-ago quarter.
- 30 new store openings in September quarter, for a total of 40 in fiscal 2011. 28 outside of U.S.
- Cash and marketable securities up $10 billion sequentially to $76.2 billion.
- Now deferring revenue recognition for Lion sales, recognized over period of three years. Same with iCloud. As of June 6th, Apple is deferring $22 of revenue from each Mac sold to be recognized over a period of four years. Also deferring $16 of revenue from each iPhone/iPad and $11 from iPod touch to be recognized over two years.
- Extremely pleased with record revenue and earnings and customer response to our products.

Q&A:

Q: 12% downtick in revenue guidance is more than usual. Why?
A: Let me start with the units. For education buying season, September is weighted toward higher education, and we expect increases there. We also expect increases in iPhone, etc. There is also a future product transition that we are not going to talk about today. Those factors are already in our guidance. Confident in our pipeline. Tim Cook talking about some cannibalization of Mac by iPad. But also cannibalizing Windows. Very happy with 14% growth in Mac.

Q: What about importance of China?
A: We consider greater China to be Mainland China + Hong Kong + Taiwan. Sales 6x year-over-year. This quarter, revenue $3.8b from Greater China. $8.8b over last 3 quarters from Greater China. “We believe this is a substantial opportunity for Apple and we’re just scratching the surface.”

Q: What about margin predictions?
A: Most components in a very positive pricing situation. HD supply currently constrained but LCD/NAND Flash pricing falling.

Q: Patent disputes, how to put in context with Apple’s IP strategy?
A: Tim Cook: “We have a very simple view here. That view is we love competition, we think it’s great for us and for everyone, but we want people to invent their own stuff. We’re going to make sure we defend our portfolio appropriately.”

Q: What drove iPhone strength in the quarter?
A: Tim: We did add 42 new carriers and 15 new countries in the quarter. We continued our expansion efforts to get out beyond the 225 carrier number and above 100 countries. This occurred throughout the quarter and the real sequential improvement was frankly due to emerging and developed markets. China, Latin America driven by Brazil and Mexico was a big part and the Middle East was a big part of it. It’s great for Apple because these are markets that Apple historically has not been as strong in, we’re really beginning to see the fruits of our labor in these markets.

Q: Milestones hoping to hit over the next quarter for iPhone?
A: It’s something that is of great focus to us, we want to do business with great partners and there are great partners for us to do business with. We’re always working on new relationships.

Q: Any thoughts in terms of Android activation numbers relative to Apple?
A: Android activation number is a difficult one to get our hands around. Unlike our numbers which we can go to our data sheet and add our iPhone and iPad and make a reasonable approximation of iPod touch, you can quickly see in the June quarter we sold 33 million iOS devices. Across time, we’re now over 222 million cumulative iOS devices. We think this is incredible. Our numbers are very straightforward, transparent and reported quarterly.

iPhone is 142% YoY growth. This is 2x the rate of growth of the Smartphone market. We think this is incredible. We sold every iPad 2 in the quarter we could make. There was no shortage of demand. Gaining traction in enterprise. Our intention is not to getting test and pilot programs. We are turning to penetration.

App store is largest by far, if you look at iPad specific apps we’re looking at more than 100,000. You’ll be hard pressed to find more than a few hundred on other platforms. Other tablets aren’t getting any traction to speak of. We’ve paid $2.5 billion to developers and it’s a great business proposition to them. Well over 15 billion apps downloaded, so customers love it too. Confident with products, app store, developers, customer satisfaction ranks iPhone number 1, so confident with customer reception and confident with our roadmap.

Q: Apple TV and connected TV market?
A: Apple TV continues to do well but I don’t want to mislead. We still call it a “hobby” and we do that because we don’t want anyone to conclude that it’s another “leg of the stool” because it’s not in the size market that the iPhone, Mac, iPad or iPod is in. We and customers love the product. We really got it right with the new Apple TV but right now it’s still a “hobby status”. We’re continuing to invest in it because we think there’s something there.

Q: Diversify contract manufacturing base and non-Apple Retail channel?
A: Tim: Regarding non-Apple retail channel, looking at iPhone for example, we have 115,000 points of sale. Incredibly diversified, selling through carriers, through retail, through our online store, direct sales forces to enterprise — channel is extremely well diversified. Still countries where we’re building the channel, so the journey is not complete. But in mature markets, the channel is in good shape. Not something we’re worried about.

Regarding suppliers, we don’t want to get into this in any detail. It’s part of the magic and part of the things that we have some ‘secret sauce’ in, and we’d prefer not to share it.

“Are we too centralized in one place?” The people here involved in supply chain always ask that question, I think we always make the right decision for Apple.

Q: How is manufacturing yield on iPhone and iPad coming?
A: Supply of iPad improved through the quarter but we aren’t going to comment on specific yield numbers. Further improvements in supply in initial weeks of July and we’re in supply demand balance in some countries. Feel very good about progress in that area.

Q: iPhone growth is extraordinary. How can Apple sustain that growth? Approaching saturation — make changes or keep the business model?
A: Apple doesn’t set tariff/plan pricing. At a macro level, if you talk to folks around the world, virtually every carrier desires having more customers with smartphones using data. This is a way for them to expand their ARPUs. We believe there is no better device than the iPhone. The ease of use is unparalleled and we believe there is good alignment in that area.

Key driver in our sequential results in iPhone units are emerging and developing markets. We’re putting more energy in these markets that are a big more difficult to do well in than the established countries. We have a very good focus here, we can compete with anyone.

Q: Including prepaid, indirect distribution markets?
A: Looking at emerging markets in the aggregate, most of those are prepaid. We believe postpaid is better in the long term for customer, carrier and Apple. In general we are playing in the prepaid market — not avoiding that market, we know we need to play there in order to have the types of volumes we’d like to have.

Expanding our channels is obviously on our to-do list.

Q: Mac growth was 5% sequential, notebook sequential was below that. Past few years have been 17-18%. Was this quarter cannibalization? Anticipation of Lion?
A: Tim: Look at YoY than sequential on the Mac. Prouder of the numbers that we achieved — to grow at 14% when the market is growing at 2.6%, doing 5x the rate of growth, is certainly something to be proud of. Why is the number not higher than 14%? No matter how high it is we would focus on that.

Three things that are the primary factors: First, some cannibalization of new Macs by iPads. Shipped 9.2m iPads during the quarter, 2x the number of Macs shipped. Some customers chose to purchase an iPad instead of a new Mac. But more customers chose to buy an iPad than a Windows PC.

Second, some customers have delayed purchases until Lion becomes available. We are looking forward to getting Lion out. Guys working very hard on it, it’s a fantastic product. Revolutionary change.

Third, in the year-ago quarter, we launched new MacBook Pros. In this quarter, we launched new iMacs. Both products were well received, however the MBP makes up the majority of the units that we sell in the Mac segment.

If you change the MBP and its well received, it’s going to make the YoY comp more difficult to compare to. Those are the three things impacting Mac growth, but it’s already 5x the industry and this is the 21st consecutive quarter that we’ve beat the market.

Q: What’s the growth look like after this quarter for iPads?
A: We don’t predict unit sales, we aggregate into guidance. Peter said earlier that we think iPads will grow “significantly” year over year. We’ll leave the rest of it to [analysts] to conclude. We’ll be happy to report in October how you did.

Q: What are the issues for iPad ramping up production to higher levels? When will we be at equilibrium from production and supply?
A: This is a good sort of problem per se. Demand is fantastic, so there’s not something that we would point to on the supply-side that’s a huge issue. To talk about this month, the first weeks of July, supply has further improved since we ended our June quarter. That further improvement have led some SKUs in some countries to be in supply/demand balance.

We won’t predict on other countries, but we’re working very hard to get as many units to customers as we can. We’ve included that thinking in our guidance.

Q: Anything you’re doing different investing in enterprise sales force or going to market on enterprise side?
A: We have a dual prong strategy with enterprise on both iPad and iPhone. We work with carrier sales forces, and they have large ones, many enterprises want devices connected to the carriers. We train and provide help to carriers on that. We do some sales directly or act as an overlay sales force to a channel that sells to enterprise.

Still building it out, and we do a bit better each quarter. Very, very happy with numbers on interest and taking customers to pilot and deployment stages. Now we’re working on penetration and getting on the standards lists on those accounts.

To be this far into enterprise with a product that’s been shipping for 15 months is incredible. Enterprise is typically much more conservative and takes a long time to evaluate products. People are moving faster than I’ve seen.

K-12 takes a long time for new product categories but last quarter we sold more iPads in K-12 than we sold Macs. To do that after just 5 quarters is shocking. We would never have predicted this. We feel very good about iPad. It’s clear that it has a universal appeal across many different markets: consumer, enterprise, education, government and so on.

Q: How is iCloud going to drive more purchases and a halo effect across other devices?
A: Can’t wait to get iCloud and iOS 5 into the hands of customers. We think we’ve done it right with iCloud — seamless integrated experience that they’re going to love.

Q: Do you have a lead over competitors to instantly mirror content across device?
A: We’re very, very good with the Internet, with telecommunications and delivering content. We’ve proven that for a decade over iTunes, App Store and big developer payments. Probably have things to learn but we have a lot of skills and are excited to get iCloud to customers.

Q: China Mobile has lots of iPhones on its network but it doesn’t sell the phone. Sounds like lots of prepaid and unlocked phones on their network. Apple’s channel in China is prepaid — how significant is prepaid in China and other emerging markets? What lessons have you learned?
A: Prepaid or unlocked phones (phones sold without a contract) are very key in China and in a number of emerging markets where the credit systems are not as well established as they are in Western countries.

iPhone volume for the first 3 quarters of the fiscal year was up 5x YoY. iPhone is the key contributor to Greater China having a cumulative revenue of $8.8b for the first 3 quarters. I’m not saying that we have figured out precisely how to play perfectly in the environment — we haven’t. We have more to do and more to learn but I feel very good about our progress there. If any of us had been told a year ago that we’d do $3.8 billion in Greater China in a quarter, we wouldn’t have believed it and you wouldn’t have believed it.

We’re taking our learnings and applying it to other markets as well.

Q: Worldwide market share data is consistent and irrefutable with the iPhone being a share gainer. Market data from a few markets suggests iPhone has lost share. Most of market share data suggests phones over $300 are going to grow much slower than sub-$300. Where do you fit?
A: Share gain is important. Any time we’re going the wrong way, we are working hard to change that. Regarding multiple price points, we do offer the 3GS which is $49 with a contract in the US. In prepaid markets, it is affected by the channel and taxes so it varies market-to-market but it’s clearly a different price than the iPhone 4 is.

Our philosophy is the same as it always has been. We will only make products that we’re proud of and are the best in the world. If we can do that, and the price ends up lower, then we’re great with that.

An example of that is the iPod Shuffle. It started at a different price point and now it’s $49. It’s a great product and a lot of people love it.

We’ll only make products we’re proud of and we want to know, regardless of price-band analysis. It’s up to use to convince people to spend a little more for a materially better product. People will do that if the product is great and the message is appropriate.

Q: What have you learned about media consumption on the iPad?
A: If you talk to 10 people you’ll get 10 reasons why they love it. That’s why it’s doing so well across people and geographies.

Q: Why don’t we have more movie titles on iTunes at this point?
A: Broad library of movies and TV shows particularly in the US. Adding more content internationally each quarter. Look for more content later this quarter across the various stores. We have some neat stuff coming.

That’s a wrap!

Some companies make “joysticks” that try to bridge the gap, but it’s still a far cry from having physical buttons like a Nintendo DS. One solution is the iCade, which started as an April Fool’s Joke, but was so popular that ThinkGeek turned it into a real product. It’s great, but not exactly portable.

Now, we have the iControlPad. It’s a Bluetooth control pad that’s been in the works for more than three years — and it’s finally shipping.

Now, the iControlPad is great in theory, but it’s not exactly an answer to gamer prayers — through no fault of its own. No, the problem is that there aren’t many games on the App Store that support it because of the restrictions Apple places on how bluetooth devices interact with apps. TouchArcade explains:

While, due to the aforementioned restrictions, the iControlPad can only interface with un-jailbroken iOS devices by way of keyboard emulation, it can interface with other platforms, including Android and WebOS, via the more robust protocols and, thus, deliver its full range of capabilities. Keyboard emulation does allow all other controls on the device to work under iOS — but no analog sticks, which need to send a constant stream of positional data to the host device.

If this turns out to be true, it will mean there would be an iPhone 4S in addition to the prepaid iPhone 3GS available within the next month to two. Let’s do one better, though. In addition to that news, we are told that Apple will continue to sell the current iPhone 4 as well, finally giving the company a full range of devices in the lower, mid, and high-end price segments.

Rumors of Apple releasing a low-cost iPhone carrying an unsubsidized price in the range of $350 have been circulating in recent weeks, with one analyst claiming that Apple will in fact be using the iPhone 3GS to fill that role, slashing its price to free on-contract and $399 without contract. The 8 GB iPhone 3GS currently retails for $449 unsubsidized.

“Apple’s sales estimates of the new iPhone is quite aggressive. It told us to prepare to help the company meet its goal of 25 million units by the end of the year,” said another person at one of Apple’s suppliers. “The initial production volume will be a few million units… we were told to ship the components to assembler Hon Hai in August.”

Countering claims that the next-generation iPhone will be nearly identical in appearance to the iPhone 4, the Journal‘s sources indicate that the new device will be “thinner and lighter” and that Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn/Hon Hai is having difficulties with yield rate on the new device due to it being “complicated and difficult to assemble.”

Two of the people, however, cautioned that shipments of the new iPhone could be delayed if Hon Hai can’t improve its yield rate as the new iPhone is “complicated and difficult to assemble.”

Reports over the past few months have been pointing to a September release for the next-generation iPhone, which has been said to carry Apple’s A5 processor found in the iPad 2, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a baseband chip from Qualcomm to support both GSM and CDMA networks.

Just two weeks ago, Verizon confirmed that it would be dropping the unlimited data plan in July, with leaks pinpointing the new data plans and a debut date of July 7th. Existing unlimited plan subscribers were said to be grandfathered in and thus able to keep their current plans after that date, even after upgrading their devices.

FierceWireless now reports that Verizon has confirmed the new offerings as previously leaked, with the new plans indeed set to go into effect this Thursday, July 7th.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney told FierceWireless that new smartphone customers will choose from one of four options: $10 for 75 MB per month, $30 for 2 GB, $50 for 5 GB or $80 for 10 GB. There will be an overage charge of $10 per GB of data. AT&T Mobility charges $15 per month for 200 MB and $25 per month for 2 GB.

Verizon has also confirmed that existing customers on the unlimited plan who upgrade their devices on or after July 7th will be able to keep their data plans.

Both Verizon and AT&T have confirmed that they are also looking into rolling out shared data plans across devices, following the lead of other international carriers already offering the plans. Under those plans, customers can draw from a single data allotment using multiple devices such as an iPhone and iPad, but Verizon and AT&T have yet to announce specific timeframes for rolling out such plans.

Update: FierceWireless has edited its story to clarify that the $10 plan offering 75 MB of data is available for feature phones and not for smartphones such as the iPhone.

As its entry-level iPhone strategy, Apple is expected to cut iPhone 3GS to $0 (on contract, $399 unsubsidized) in conjunction with iPhone 5 launch (we continue to expect it in September). This approach is intended to target mid-market smartphone buyers and counter Android’s mid-market expansion. We expect iPhone 5 to launch at $199/$299 ($599/$699 unsubsidized), and Apple to drop iPhone 4 pricing to $99 ($499 unsubsidized).

The claimed $399 price point for the unsubsidized iPhone 3GS is a bit higher than other reports have been hinting at, with the analyst report from earlier this week suggesting that Apple would try to come in at $349 for its cheaper iPhone.

Earlier reports had claimed that Apple was working on a smaller iPhone form factor that could allow the company to offer the device for as little as $200 unsubsidized. But while some rumblings of a new, smaller iPhone option for this year continue to float around, Abramsky believes that the “baby iPhone” will not be released until 2012, in part to fully take advantage of iCloud leverage that may not be possible as the service debuts.

One MacRumors reader emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking for clarification on the issue while hinting about a switch to Android if adequate explanations are not forthcoming. Jobs reportedly responded, turning the tables by claiming both that Apple does not track users and that Android does while referring to the information about iOS shared in the media as “false”.

Q: Steve,

Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It’s kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don’t track me.

A: Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.

Sent from my iPhone

As is Jobs’ usual style, his brief comments provide little detail or information to support his claims, and his vagueness leaves things rather open to interpretation.

Android has been shown to also gather location information, but the database is limited to a much smaller list of entries and is regularly wiped by the system. Jobs’ email seems to explicitly claim, however, that Google’s location information is used to track users while Apple’s is not.

Apple responded to some questions about location tracking and privacy last July, noting that users have the ability to turn off location services entirely and that all location features require explicit authorization from the user. The Wall Street Journal has found, however, that this newly-publicized database is constructed even when location services are turned off entirely.

The Journal tested the collection of data on an iPhone 4 that had been restored to factory settings and was running the latest version of Apple’s iOS operating system.

The Journal disabled location services (which are on by default) and immediately recorded the data that had initially been gathered by the phone. The Journal then carried the phone to new locations and observed the data. Over the span of several hours as the phone was moved, it continued to collect location data from new places.

As many observers have noted, the iOS location database does not record exact GPS data, instead seeking to pinpoint the locations of Wi-Fi access points and cell towers that the device comes within range of, although the database does offer a clear general track of a user’s movements.

In the meantime, government agencies in a number of countries have launched investigations into the situation, seeking explanations from Apple and details on how users can protect their privacy.