The company has posted the available positions on numerous job boards such as 37 Signals’ and Smashing Magazine’s. Here are some specifics for both positions:

Sr. Web UI Engineer at Apple Inc.

Type: Full-time Job
Location: Cupertino, CA
Apple is seeking a Senior Web Front-End Engineer to help create and define the interactivity of Apple’s Online Store. This senior front end engineer will be responsible for architectural oversight of front-end technologies as well as collaborating on ideas with other Senior Engineers in other disciplines.

Responsibilities:
- Lead development efforts on large scale projects, ensuring robust & lasting solutions are implemented.
- Maintain JavaScript libraries: Adding and pruning them as necessary and providing documentation to be leveraged by other engineers.
- Mentor team members: Educate on software development best practices and new technologies.
- Innovate: Design things that people will blog and Twitter about.

Minimum of 7 years of professional software development experience with front end web development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, AJAX)

- Comfortable with source version control software (CVS, SVN, Git)
- Well-versed in fundamental visual and interactive design discipline
- Strive to use web standards to build solutions using semantic markup and CSS.
- Understanding of all major browsers and the special coding required for all various quirks.
- Competent JavaScript programmer who doesn’t need to rely on libraries to accomplish innovative interactions.
- Aware of the interplay between JavaScript and HTML & CSS, and can dynamically create, modify, and style elements on a page with ease.
- Able to communicate front-end issues with back-end developers.

Video Editor Product Designer, Pro Apps

Apple’s Pro Apps Design Group is seeking a passionate video editor who understands the complexity of software product design. This person must possess a relentless attention to detail, a gifted eye for aesthetics and the ability to quickly grasp and distill highly complex matters.

The candidate will work closely with all designers, producers, engineers, and other editors to design the future of Pro Apps; high-visibility applications that are used daily by creative professionals working in post-production (examples include Final Cut Pro, Motion and Soundtrack Pro).

The designer will be responsible for researching, designing and prototyping new user experiences and features, creating design mockups, producing visual assets and writing behavioral documentation (required for proper design implementation).

The candidate must be a natural collaborator who prefers being creative in a team environment, a passionate customer advocate and be capable of crafting and designing simple solutions to complex design problems.

Qualifications:
-Minimum 5 years of experience as a video editor, with sound design/production, motion graphics, photography, and videography skills.
-Experienced creating or designing innovative and visually stunning user experiences for software, games, DVDs, video, or the web.
-Degree in film production, interaction design, human factors and/or visual design (or equivalent).
-An outstanding body of work demonstrated as a reel (film, TV, web examples) or design portfolio demonstrating the successful delivery of innovative video, motion graphics, and/or design.
-Understanding of Apple’s human interface design language and the ability to translate it into future designs of Apple’s professional applications.
-Exceptional understanding of fundamental design disciplines (typography, composition, information architecture, color and animation) and principals (affordance, clustering, consistency, usability, etc.).
-The ideal candidate is not afraid of a blank white board or blank screen.

Software Skills:
-Expert-level knowledge of editing, motion graphics, and finishing suites like FCP, Avid, Smoke, Luster, etc.
-Highly versed in graphic design tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Omnigraffle, etc.
-Complete mastery of the Mac OS X platform.
-Advanced knowledge of interaction prototyping tools such as Flash, Director and/or AfterEffects is a big plus.

Interestingly, in relation to the pro apps video editing position, we recently covered an interesting Apple patent (Apple Patent Shows Interest in Film Production, Script-Integrated Storyboards) that may possibly relates to this position.

Related posts:

1. Apple Patent Shows Interest in Film Production, Script-Integrated Storyboards
2. Apple’s Secret Product Transition Nothing More than Video Encoding Chips?
3. Apple Poaches Top IBM Chip Designer, IBM Sues Back

Shortly after Apple’s recent iPhone/iPod display table overhaul, the company will ready the third major interior design change to its brick-and-mortar locations. ifoAppleStore notes that these changes have included wood floors and the transition to a stainless interior in September of 2006. According to the upcoming plans, Apple will put hardware on the back-burner of their marketing strategy to focus the spotlight on software and the various digital features of Apple’s product lines. This correlates well with how Apple’s recent marketing of iPhones and iPod touches seems to have a heavier focus on the 20,000 applications that are now at the users fingertips, over promoting the actual devices themselves.

Upon entering the restructured floor space, customers are said to be greeted with a front section of the store dedicated to promoting “Why You’ll Love a Mac.” The correlating signage and literature will note the advantages of Macs over PCs. It is also said that the next section of the retail space will concentrate on the iLife suite of applications and how the software can assist in the user’s everyday digital lifestyle. Additionally a third section of the interior makeover will focus on the iLife suite of applications. The layout restructuring is said to begin taking effect as early as next week, yet could be several weeks for staff training and display changes.

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1. Apple moving into Vegas with insanely lavish Retail Store.
2. Apple Surveying Retail Store Visitors Through Medallia
3. iPhone Software 2.1 Apple Finally Gets It Right

The gothamist is reporting (via unconfirmed sources) that “Apple has purchased the building that currently houses the Salvation Army located at 176 Bedford Avenue (on the corner of Bedford and North 7th) in Williamsburg.”

Currently, the building is not vacant, and is up for lease, but still occupied by the Salvation Army. However, earlier rumors suggested that the building could become a McDonald’s restaurant, so the church may be looking to sell. “Apple is thought by many to have an interest in a Brooklyn store, but has not confirmed any site or even a desire to expand. Locations rumored in the past have included 345 Adams Street, amidst upper-class stores and restaurants, and a front in The Edge on Kent Avenue. If launched, a Brooklyn store would mark Apple’s fifth store inside of New York City, the highest concentration of Apple Stores anywhere,” Macnn explains.

Related posts:

1. Apple plans $1.9M store at Lakeside; New Orleans
2. Steve Jobs On New NYC Apple Store, “This is not for Apple”
3. Apple Planning a Retail Store Restructuring to Spotlight Software

Retail sellers are pointing to low inventory of the 8GB iPhone 3G, which could possibly indicate the introduction of a new 32GB iPhone 3G to match up with the iPod touch product models, as well as a confirmed unsubsidized iPhone to be sold. Alongside the new model, in-home activation appears to be a new option for Apple employees (and customers) during checkout. AT&T could be severely affected by the move, as many phones may be bought directly from Apple, avoiding the carrier altogether.

In September of last year, Apple discontinued the original 4GB iPhone model only 3 months after launching the device. Roughly 5 months later, in February of 2008, Apple released a 16GB iPhone to offer two storage capacity choices to its customers. It doesn’t seem shocking that Apple would continue following this trend. AppleInsider also claims that suppliers are indeed low on the 8GB model. Although the NAND flash market is pretty shaky right now, Apple has been known to hoard lots of NAND flash memory. Surely they want to line up a steady refresh pattern for their media playing (portable) products, as well as have the ability to introduce higher storage capacities at lower price-points.

Additionally, a new option that resellers have been seeing during an iPhone 3G sale (checkout process), is “in-home activation,” displayed simply as — Home — on the EasyPay system.

Previously the only options offered on the EasyPay system were as follows:
1. Upgrade/Swap existing Phone
2. New to AT&T starting a single line
3. New to AT&T starting a family line
4. Add a line to existing account

Originally, Apple got rid of in-home iPhone activation for a few reasons; They were having trouble tracking unlocked phones. Tons of them were showing up unlocked, and being sold overseas. Apple has also tried to enforce a cash only policy (for iPhone payment), in order to decrease people’s ability to buy and sell unlocked iPhones. Attempting to ultimately circumvent an iPhone black market, Apple set out on a plan for Global Domination. Another reason in-home activation was canned, was “the new phone’s much lower price, which required tying the new purchase to an in-store contract activation,” AppleInsider explains.

Apple executives and representatives have specifically mentioned the expectancy of an unlocked iPhone 3G being sold legally and unsubsidized (without a contract). The device would be sold at a much higher price point (possibly $599-$699), and not require any long term commitments to get started. Essentially, a customer could walk into an Apple Store, spend $600 on an unlocked device with no hassle and be on his way. A move like this would successfully play into Apple’s overall sales and revenue, leaving the only leverage move for AT&T being the unsubsidized physical hardware price, and visual voicemail (which their network has been tailored to support).

Without worrying too much about the longevity of their exclusivity with AT&T, recent rumblings have led MacBlogz to believe that “bigger picture”, AT&T has merely been used as a launching pad, or vehicle of sorts for Apple to unveil its revolutionary device and have complete control over the hardware and software during the process. Now that the iPhone has been proven a blockbuster success, we believe Apple is looking much further into the device’s future and has no long term plans to stay with AT&T. Seeing as how network carriers base their core revenue on long-term contracts, this could prove detrimental to AT&T.

Related posts:

1. iTunes Servers Dead, iPhone 3G Customers Sent Home with Bricked iPhones
2. 32GB iPhone 3G Making Its Debut at MacWorld 2009?
3. More “Bye Bye AT&T” Rumors, iPhone Going EVDO/CDMA