Sources close to Apple told 9to5Mac that the next iteration of Apple’s iOS software will be getting a complete redesign. That redesign will predominantly sport black and white colors while toning down on the textured look that iOS has been known for since its inception in 2007.

Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive (aka the guy who designed the iPhone hardware) is now in charge of the iOS7 overhaul. He is expected to bring the simplistic design of his hardware to iOS 7. He reportedly feels that Apple’s iOS has become complicated in recent years with different visual designs for different apps. His design would unite all of Apple’s software under a common aesthetic principle while retaining the simplicity of use iOS fans have come to expect.

Ive’s new black and white approach to UI design will find its way into pretty much every facet of the next iteration of iOS. Some examples include a lock screen that’s no longer transparent, notifications that ditch the current leather look in favor of a white text on black background, and the home screen will be removing gradient textures from backgrounds and app icons.

Speaking of apps, all of Apple’s apps have reportedly been redesigned with the new black and white look in mind. One example is the Notes app, which currently features a yellow notepad look. The new design will likely feature a simplistic white look with black text.

Outside of design, the new mobile OS will also reportedly include integration with Flickr and Vimeo.

We’re likely to see if the above rumors are true at Apple’s WWDC keynote on June 10. The developer-focused event will likely not feature a lot of new hardware (sorry iPhone fans), but we’ll probably get our first look at iOS 7 and the next version of Mac OS X.

During the hearing, Cook slammed the current U.S. tax code for not keeping up with the “digital age.” He also said that the “tax system handicaps American corporations in relation to our foreign competitors who don’t have such constraints on the free flow of capital.”

So, what does Cook suggest the U.S. do about it? He says that the corporate tax rate needs to be slashed. His suggestion calls for a drop from a 35 percent tax rate to a mid-20s tax rate. He also encourages Congress to lower the tax rate on foreign earnings being brought into the U.S.

The result of the above, Cook says, would encourage more investment in the United States and create more jobs. He even explicitly said that Apple will not bring billions in cash back to the U.S. unless Congress lowers the tax rate.

There are many congressman who no doubt agree with Apple on this issue, but one vocally came out in defense of the company yesterday. The Hill reports that Sen. Rand Paul said the subcommittee’s hearing on Apple’s alleged tax avoidance was offensive. He called upon the subcommittee to immediately apologize to the company.

Even after all of this, Apple isn’t quite done defending itself against accusations of tax avoidance. Reuters is reporting that major European leaders will be meeting to discuss what it sees as tax dodging from major tech corporations like Google, Apple and Amazon. Investigations have found that governments within the EU miss out on over €1 trillion, or $1.3 trillion USD, in tax revenue.

[h/t: The Hill] [Image: lemagit/flickr]

Count one second. Good. In that time, 800 apps were downloaded from Apple’s App Store. That pace means that every month, Apple now sees more that 2 billion app downloads.

“Apple would like to thank our incredible customers and developers for topping 50 billion apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The App Store completely transformed how people use their mobile devices and created a thriving app ecosystem that has paid out over nine billion dollars to developers. We’re absolutely floored to cross this milestone in less than five years.”

In honor of this milestone, Apple gave away a prize for the lucky person who just happened to download number 50,000,000,000. His name is Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio, and the lucky app was Say the Same Thing, a word game that lets you and a friend bridge word gaps to find common ground. Today, he’s the proud owner of a $10,000 App Store gift card.

This isn’t the first time Apple has done this sort of promotion for a big milestone. Back in March of 2012, when Apple hit 25 billion app downloads, they gave away another $10,000 gift card to a Chinese man who downloaded the popular puzzle game Where’s My Water.

Apple says that the App Store currently boasts over 850,000 apps. They’ve come a long way from the 500 that they started out with way back in 2008.

If you were wondering, the most popular apps of all time out of those 50 billion downloaded are Angry Birds (paid) and Facebook (free).

Apple hit 40 billion app downloads back in January, so that means that they tacked on 10 billion downloads in around four months. If that rate hold with a bit of acceleration (which it currently is), Apple will hit 100 billion app downloads by the end of next year or sooner. It’s a truly impressive figure.

But it’s not that far out ahead of Google’s Android. Today, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced that Google Play has seen 48 billion app installs, with 2.5 billion installs in the last month alone.

That part about the “grand prize winner” mentioned above? Well, that references the fact that Apple is giving out a big prize in celebration of hitting 50 billion. The person who was lucky enough to download the 50 billionth app will receive a $10,000 App Store gift card.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has offered such a prize. In March of 2012, when Apple hit 25 million downloaded apps, they gave away another $10,000 App Store gift card. The winner was a man from China who downloaded the puzzle game Where’s My Water.

The current bid is $605,000, and you’ll have to fork up at least $610,000 to top it.

The date first appeared on online charity auction site Charitybuzz back in April, and quickly jumped from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands. Charitybuzz put an estimated price of $50,000 on the sit-down, which will take place at Apple HQ in Cupertino. It surpassed that suggested value in less than 24 hours.

In less than a week, the bids topped $600,000. Charitybuzz was forced to remove a top bid, however, after it was discovered that it was made using a stolen credit card.

In light of that, Charitybuzz has added an extra layer of authentication to placing a bid. Any new bids must now go through additional bank qualification, and you have to contact their customer service to make it happen.

So if you’re ready to top the current $605,000 bid, which has been the top bid for nearly two weeks now, you have about 24 hours to do so. The bidding closes at 4:08 pm ET on Tuesday.

Gates discussed the conversation the two had just prior to Jobs’ death, and how they talked about the boat Jobs was building and how he couldn’t wait to get on it – “even though we both knew there was a good chance that wouldn’t happen.”

“No, he was not being melancholy, like ‘oh I’ve been gypped’” said Gates. “It was very…forward looking.”

When asked about something Jobs had that he wanted, Gates didn’t hesitate.

“Oh, his sense of design. That everything had to fit a certain aesthetic. The fact that he, with as little engineering background as he had, it shows that design can lead you in a good direction and so phenomenal products came out of it.”

He had an intuitive sense for marketing…that was amazing.”

Gates made a point to discuss the respect he had for Jobs, even as rivals.

“He and I, in a sense, grew up together. We were within a year of the same age, and we were kind of naively optimistic and built big companies. And every fantasy we had about creating products and learning new things – we achieved all of it. And most of it as rivals. But we always retained a certain respect and communication, including even when he was sick.”

Check out the interview, with additional commentary from Rose, below:

This time, it’s 50 billion App Store downloads that’s fast approaching, and the person who puts them over the top is going to win a $10,000 App Store gift card.

“As of today, nearly 50 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. And we couldn’t have done it without you. So we want to say thanks. Download the 50 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Or download one of the first 50 apps after that, and you could win a US$500 App Store Gift Card,” says Apple.

In order to be eligible for the prize, you have to be at least 13 years old. And you can only be “entered” 25 times per day, which means that you only have 25 chances that the app you’re downloading is going to be the 50,000,000,000th. It’s like winning the lottery, but hey – you’re going to download apps anyway, might as well give yourself a chance to win a ton of iTunes money.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has offered such a prize for an App Store milestone. A little over a year ago, in March of 2012, Apple hit 25 billion App Store downloads. And they gave away a $10,000 App Store gift card then as well – to a Chinese man who downloaded the popular puzzle game Where’s My Water.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek is back on the iPhone 6 rumor beat with an update. He says that Apple will indeed launch the iPhone 6 in 2014 – June to be exact. He also speculates that the iPhone 6 will receive the oft-rumored display size upgrade.

So, where does Misek’s report leave this year’s rumored iPhone 5S? While the new device may not sport a larger display, Misek says it will have a better processor, a better camera and new mobile payment options in Passbook. If that’s not enough, he also says that Apple will finally offer the iPhone in a variety of different colors.

Even without a larger display, the iPhone 5S has the potential to shake everything up on the software side of things. 9to5Mac says that iOS 7 will sport a completely new redesign that ditches the realistic stylings of iOS in favor of a more “flat” design that you see on platforms like Windows 8.

Some people say that Apple needs to increase the size of the iPhone’s display to better compete with Android, but the iPhone may be able to wait out one more year if iOS receives a substantial upgrade. Software is always more important than hardware, and a completely revamped iOS could make everybody forget about the bigger iPhone until next year.

[Financial Post via BGR]

Internal documentation reveals that the iPhone will be classified as “vintage” or “obsolete” by June 11th. This will affect the Asia-Pacific, Canada, Europe, Japan, Latin America, and the United States.

Here’s what the internal document says (obtained by 9to5Mac):

For vintage products in the U.S., service parts are only available to repair older Apple products purchased in the state of California, as required by statute. Owners of these products may obtain service and parts from Apple service providers of Apple retail stores within the state of California. Apple does not provide service parts nor service documentation for obsolete products. Obsolete products (obsolete and vintage in the U.S.) cannot be facilitated as Mail-In Repairs to AppleCare Repair Centers.

In the U.S., you won’t be able to walk in to Apple Stores and have your original iPhone serviced. But you can call directly to AppleCare and Authorized Service Providers, as it has “vintage” status.

It’s not just the iPhone that’s being given this status. Various iMacs and MacBooks are also being laid to rest, so to say.

Of course, this will rarely affect anyone in a practical way. The original iPhone, with its EDGE 2G and 128 MB of RAM is not really in the circulation anymore. It’s been discontinued for years, and you would have to look pretty hard to find a conclave of original iPhone users – considering the low price and availability of something like the iPhone 4.

But it is significant, nostalgic even. We’re now living in a world where the original iPhone, heralded as such an innovation back in 2007, is now considered obsolete. Officially.

We first told you about the charity auction earlier this week. Tim Cook is auctioning off a coffee date at Apple HQ in Cupertino for one lucky bidder and a friend. All of the money will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

When we first told you about it on Wednesday, the current bid was $36,999. Charitybuzz, the site that’s hosting the auction, put an estimated price of $50,000 on the prize. At that point, with 20 days left to go on the bidding, we assumed that it would eventually hit that $50,000 mark.

But this is just bananas. As of the writing of this article, the top bid sits at $580,000. And there’s still 18 days left to go in the auction. The top bid was just over $300,000 this morning. Unless something happens and the bidding just dies, it looks like someone is seriously going to pay millions of dollars for a 30-minute to an hour meeting with Cook.

Just think about it this way: Back in 2011, the top bid for such a prize on Charitybuzz went for face time with former President Bill Clinton. In the end, the top bid was $255,000.

As the bidding goes higher, it’s likely that a companies will be the ones battling it out. Back when the bidding was lower, say a few thousand dollars, individuals were in the mix. Now, the last dozen or so bids have been dominated by companies. For instance, Drbluetooth.com is the current highest bid holder.

We’ll keep our eye on this, but we fully expect the total to be absolutely insane by the time May 14th rolls around.