According to the Wall Street Journal , Roger Rosner is the executive in charge of Apple's digital textbook tools.

Since at least 2004, Apple has offered a rebate program that has typically offered users a $100 rebate when they purchase a new Mac and an eligible printer directly from Apple. The program was typically offered as a three-month program that was consistently renewed upon expiration, although in recent years the company shifted toward a perpetual program while reserving the right to discontinue it at any time

AllThingsD reports on new research from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) analyzing the impact of the secondary market for the iPhone, the portion of used iPhones that are resold or given away when users upgrade to the latest models.

Apple's education-focused media event isn't until Thursday, but Japanese blog Macotakara reports that Apple is already making plans for an early February event to introduce the iPad 3 ahead of an early March launch. The event is said to potentially also feature iOS 5.1, which is currently in developer testing. According to asian supplier and a source in United States, Apple seems to prepare to hold Special Event in early February

The question of whether Apple will continue to offer the existing iPad 2 as a lower-cost option alongside the forthcoming iPad 3 has been the subject of a fair amount of rumor and speculation, but if new display panel shipment plans provided to Digitimes are correct, it appears that the iPad 2 will indeed live on. According to the report, production of the "Retina" resolution iPad 3 display panels at 2048x1536 pixels will surpass that of the lower-resolution 1024x768 iPad 2 panels by the second quarter of this year, but Apple's suppliers will still push out approximately 25 million iPad 2 panels in 2012. That will be down from an estimated 48 million panels in 2011, but still a substantial number

ifoAppleStore reports on an article from French magazine Aix en Dialogue noting that Apple is preparing to build an interesting new store in Aix-en-Provence, France. While the store appears to be a relatively small one by Apple's standards, the striking design sees the store set back on a plaza and constructed almost entirely of transparent glass with the exception of the rear wall hiding the back-of-house operations

Bloomberg briefly reports that Apple's manufacturing partners have indeed begun on production of the iPad 3, with a ramp-up to full capacity taking place by February ahead of a March launch for the device. The report corroborates circulating rumors that the iPad will offer a quad-core processor and sport a high-resolution "Retina" display.

Italian site iSpazio notes [ Google translation ] that Apple has made a small but helpful tweak to the iTunes Store when accessed from a computer, now allowing users to access information on content such as songs, albums, videos, apps, and books via a pop-up window rather than needing to click through to a separate page within the store. The new option, which appears in most locations within the store as a small "info" button in the lower right corner of the content's icon when the user hovers over the item, is available on both main iTunes Store and App Store feature pages as well as in search results.

Bloomberg reports that Apple has agreed to allow the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to access its suppliers' facilities to monitor workplace conditions in the wake of publicity surrounding worker suicides at Apple's primary manufacturing partner Foxconn. The world’s most valuable technology company joins Nike Inc. (NKE), Nestle SA (NESN) and Syngenta AG (SYNN) in turning to the Fair Labor Association, set up in 1999 to monitor workplace conditions globally in an initiative by former U.S.

CNET yesterday reported that Verizon has announced a "hard requirement" that all future smartphones released on the carrier support 4G LTE technology for faster data speeds. That requirement has naturally led to speculation that the carrier has all but confirmed that the iPhone 5 will support LTE, which had already been widely assumed and rumored. Verizon's statement does, however, come with a minor catch, as there will reportedly be occasional exceptions to the LTE requirement, although those exceptions seem to be planned for the carrier's push-to-talk business