Apple Rejoins Green Electronics List; Apple Popular in Iran

Every week, makes news with technology developments, business deals and, more often than not, controversies.

That’s where our weekly "Core Bytes" column on Apple comes in. We’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our favorite backyard tech giant.

Controversies

When Apple removed itself from a government supported green electronics list a couple weeks ago, it was bound to ruffle a few feathers. One was the entire City of San Francisco, which announced it would stop purchasing Apple products. Yet Friday, the company succumbed to criticism, righteously rejoining the list. In a letter posted on its site, it stated that leaving the list was a “mistake” that upset many of its loyal customers. 

Stop selling the Galaxy Tab. That was what Apple stated in a letter sent to retailers and cell phone just after they won a preliminary injunction blocking the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the U.S. Yet Samsung isn’t happy about the letters: in a court filing, they stated that Apple didn’t have a right to send them, and that retailers aren’t bound by the terms of the injunction. 

New Products

Rumor has it that Apple will officially announce the iPhone 5 August 7. Still, it’s not expected to actually launch the new phone—which have slighter higher quality speakers than the iPhone 4S—in September or October.  

Business Deals and Developments

Not surprisingly, Apple CEO Tim Cook is the highest paid CEO at a Bay Area company, raking in $378 million during his first year as the top executive. The second place goes to Larry Ellison of Oracle, whose $77.5 million seems modest by comparison. 

Despite a U.S. export ban, Apple is popular in Iran, with about 100 stores in the country selling the product. The products often make it to Iranian merchants through underground trade routes throughout the country. Customers are often able to download music, videos and apps through email addresses registered outside of the country. 

Impatient Retina MacBook Pro users, you’re in luck: shipping times are now two to three weeks after ordering, an improvement of the three to four week delay customers originally experienced when Apple introduced the laptop less than a month ago. That’s according to the company's e-stores for the U.S., Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan and several other countries.

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