The App Store, Apple’s software bazaar for mobile apps, has apparently crossed a cool 500,000 app approvals in two years and ten months since its inception. The actual number of store items available for download is closer to 400,000 due to withdrawals, replacements etc. This semi-official news came courtesy of Chomp.com, 148apps.biz and EA-owned games publisher Chillingo. They also posted a cool infographic on the 500K Apps Facebook page which details a bunch of headline-worthy factoids, seen below the fold.
According toFortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt, “sometime after midnight Tuesday morning, the iTunes team pushed through a batch of app submissions that sent the total over a six-figure milestone”. In January, a customer downloaded ten billionth app on the store. Android Market has close to 300,000 apps and three billion downloads, per latest figures Google shared at the I/O 2011 conference earlier this month. Knowing Apple’s penchant for juicy stats, we can expect a formal announcement during a Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC on June 6. Here’s more food for thought…
Fans have taken AirPlay, a wireless media streaming technology from Apple, to places far beyond the boundaries of the iOS/Apple TV walled garden. For example, we’ve seen stuff like a Cydia hack that enables AirPlay in any third-party app, AirPlay support on Android and more. Developer Thomas Pleasance took it upon himself to enable AirPlay on Windows Media Center devices.
Note that you must have Apple’s Bonjour running on your Media Center PC prior to installing his cool AirPlay for Windows Media Center add-in. Bonjour is included with Apple’s free programs for Windows, such as iTunes, QuickTime, Safari and more. Grab the AirPlay for Windows Media Center add-in (still in beta) at Thomas Pleasance’s personal homepage, it’s a tiny half a megabyte download.
Do you remember your first interaction with panoramic video clips? For me, it was kinda Minority Report moment. Panoramic clips have gone mainstream and in part owe their popularity to BEP360, a 99-cent music app for iPhone and iPad by Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am that lets you interact with the band’s 360-degree music video. Should you ever need to shoot panoramic clips using your iPhone 4, definitely consider the Kogeto Dot, a Kickstarter project by Jeff Glasse aimed at bringing 360-degree video recording to the masses. It’s cool, stylish and highly portable, according to the above promo video.
The Apple Store offers price drops on select factory-refurbished unibody MacBook Pro notebooks in its Special Deals section, with prices starting at $899. It’s among the best selections we’ve seen from Apple in several weeks, and combined with free shipping, most systems at lowest-we’ve-seen prices. Sales tax is added where applicable. All come with a 1-year Apple warranty, the same as new Macs. Items are removed from Apple’s site when they sell out. Notable laptops:
Apple’s pull is virtually impossible to resist, we’ve all known that. Despite fierce competition from the likes of Samsung and HTC, Apple gets the utmost respect from rivals. See a female shopper in the above shot? That’s HTC’s co-founder and chairwoman Cher Wang, accompanied by husband Wen-Chi Chen, a CEO at VIA Technologies. The two were snapped up shopping for Apple gadgets at the Palo Alto retail store, reported the Chinese-language Mobile01 site. So, why on Earth would the couple want to set their foot inside an Apple Store? Expand Expanding Close
Version 2.0 of the Square app has the new virtual shelves feature on iPads
Square, a mobile payment startup founded and led by Twitter’s CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, has issued a new version of their iOS app with three interesting features. Certainly the most visible change is the new-look interface which looks particularly business on iPad. The main idea here is to be able to showcase products to your prospective customers on an iPad’s gorgeous 9.7-inch display. You can set up your products on virtual shelves any way you like, add your own graphics, write the accompanying description and so forth.
Another nice-to-have and more screenies below the fold.
The iPhone interface is also slightly subdued for a more professional look
The Wall Street Journalhas it on good authority that computer maker Dell will mount on Tuesday another challenge at the MacBook Air’s dominance with the XPS 15z announcement, their newest ultra-thin, stylish notebook teased with the “The game is about to change” tagline. The 15-inch machine probably sports the aluminum unibody construction Apple pioneered with the Air. It’ll start out at $999 and Dell says it’s the thinnest notebook “on the planet”. This could be interesting for Apple which doesn’t yet have a 15-inch MacBook Air model in its notebook arsenal…
Amazon has really gone all-out this time, tapping the world’s biggest celebrity for an unheard-of promotion: They marked down Lady GaGa’s latest album “Born This Way” to just 99 cents. For comparison, the same album sells for twelve bucks on iTunes. Both offerings contain identical content, 14 tracks plus a booklet. Apple is also offering the pricier bonus track version sporting 22 tracks for sixteen bucks. Even though Amazon’s deal is a loss-leader for the company (and a steal for the customer), it’s meant to lure us to their new music locker.
Computer maker Hewlett-Packard is adamant that its family of mobile devices built by the former Palm team and powered by the webOS operating system will eventually overtake the iPad and become “better than number one”. Matt Warman of The Daily Telegraph has this quote from HP’s European head Eric Cador who says HP’s upcoming Touchpad will become “number one plus”:
In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one. In the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.
Didn’t anyone tell HP that the battle in mobile is essentially coming down to Apple versus Google? This is the second time HP lashed out at Apple. In March, their senior vice president similarly spelled doom for Apple’s supposedly closed ecosystem, saying “Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island”.
An explosion which on last Friday rocked Foxconn’s Chengdu plant that manufactures iPad 2s could seriously affect the gizmo’s iPad 2 availability, but not as drastically as originally feared because the site isn’t the only production facility where the device is being made. The worst case scenario has the aftermath of the unfortunate event which left three dead and fifteen injured affecting up to 30 percent of iPad 2 output. The stricken plant only recently began assembling the sought-after tablet, sources tell Asian trade publication DigitTimes.
Foxconn only recently opened up iPad 2 production lines at the new plant in Chengdu, while the company’s facilities in Shenzhen, southern China, remain the main manufacturing site for the tablet PC, sources at upstream component suppliers have commented. Foxconn’s Chengdu site shipped 25-30% of the total iPad 2 devices shipped in April, while its Shenzhen site made up the remainder, the sources estimated.
Mixed reports, however, have been adding up to the overall confusion… Expand Expanding Close
Ever since I reviewed MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio for iOS, its insane amount of superior effects, the eye-catching interface taking full advantage of iPad’s canvas and the overall polish have been a revelation. Suffice to say that I walked away wanting that photo editing experience on my Mac. The opportunity is clearly there: Excluding big-name suites and a few established programs from indies, quality yet affordable photo editing programs are few and far between on the Mac. That being said, I set out to review FX Photo Studio on an aging 2.4GHz unibody Mac mini with 2GB RAM running Snow Leopard.
Apple’s R&D team has been on a roll lately. The latest patent application describes an interesting privacy mode on displays for mobile gadgets that can steer display light beams in various directions, allowing only the person directly in front of the display to see its content. Patenty Appleexplains:
The new privacy option mode only allows those directly in front of the display to view its content. Anyone on the periphery would simply see a blank display. A number of professions may find this feature very appealing. The patent also vaguely points to this technology being used in association with a future pico-like projection system and/or 3D holographic display.
The invention called “Systems and Methods for Electronically Controlling the Viewing Angle of a Display” is credited to an Apple engineer David Gere. So, how is this CIA-like stuff supposed to work?
MIC Gadget is out with a breaking story about an explosion at Foxconn’s Chengdu manufacturing plant that happened a few hours ago. This is the facility where they make iPad 2s. The explosion is said to have happened inside an “operating room”, the publication explained:
We are not sure actually what cause the explosion and how many casualties had resulted. At the scene, there are currently more than 10 fire engines, ambulances and 10 police cars had arrived on the scene.
The factory has been sealed off by the police and reporters are not allowed to come near the stricken plant due to a possible secondary explosion. Additional reports claim that six men and a woman have been hospitalized in the Sichuan People’s Hospital, two of which are seriously injured. Chinese resident Ji Quing Ling provided this account of the unfortunate event:
The explosion occurred in the A05, at 7 pm, the explosion caused many materials casted out from the building, and there are at least hundreds or more of workers inside the building. The whole building did not collapse yet, I do not know what is going on inside. Now there are more than 10 fire engines, 10 ambulances, many police cars.
Asian carrier China Telecom has approached Apple with an idea of bringing a CDMA version of the iconic handset to its 103 million subscribers. Apple, of course, is currently dealing with China Unicom only. That company commands a whopping 886 million users in the 1.4 billion people market. China Telecom’s chairman Wang Xiaochu toldReuters:
We’re not denying that we’re in touch with iPhone (Apple), but I cannot comment on the progress.
The state-owned carrier, the smallest of China’s three major wireless operators, sees a window of opportunity opening as Apple’s exclusive agreement with Unicom is set to expire later this year.
Chip maker Intel is out with a new mini-campaign to educate people about the benefits of solid state drives compared to their hard drive counterparts. They have also increased warranty of the latest 25-nanometer SSD 320 Series of solid state drives from three to five years reflecting on the “longer life-span than tradition hard drives” promise found at the new web site. The five-year warranty will also apply retroactively the already-sold units, Intel said and is valid under the presumption that users are writing up to 20GB of data per day, which can be checked through the SMART monitoring system.
Chip maker Intel had stressed they, not Apple, own all Thundebolt trademarks. Even though Apple and Intel collaborated on this high-speed I/O technology featured on the 2011 MacBook Pro and iMac families, the confusion arose when Patently Applediscovered that Apple filed for the Thunderbolt brand name trademark, their third since the technology debuted on the new MacBook Pro family in February of 2011. Few were convinced Apple owns the trademark, including Cult of Mac’s Ed Sutherland who asked, “Who the heck owns Thunderbolt, Intel or Apple?”
Deciding enough is enough, Intel has now made claims it owns the Thunderbolt trademark. Responding to an inquiry from Theo Valich over at Bright side of news, Intel’s senior communications manager Dave Salvator provided this statement:
As part of our collaboration with Apple, they did some of the initial trademark filings. Intel has full rights to the Thunderbolt trademark now and into the future. The Thunderbolt name will be used going forward on all platforms, irrespective of operating system.
[UPDATE May 20, 2011 3:15am Pacific] Intel’s representative has contacted the publication with additional clarification. To make a long story short, Intel and Apple have agreed that the iPhone maker will transfer their Thunderbolt trademark to the semiconductor giant. Valich explains:
Apple filed for the original trademark and is now transferring that trademark to Intel. At the same time, Apple will continue to have unrestricted use of the technology. 3rd party implementations such as Sony’s desire to use USB Connector instead of DisplayPort and the eventual change of technology branding (Sony’s IEEE1394 a.k.a. Firewire implementation was named i.LINK) will have to be ironed out as the time passes by.
See the above illustration? Apple has used it in one of their many patent applications to envision the Aperture user interface on a touch screen device. If that drawing is anything to go by, Aperture could be in the works for iPad. Said patent application surfaced in the United States Patent & Trademark Office’s database, entitled “Docking User Interface Elements”. The document goes to great lengths to describe a heads-up display of sorts to interact with a touch-enabled version of Aperture. Why does it matter?
Typical scene outside an Apple Store that hosts a high-profile product launch
On May 19, 2001 Steve Jobs took a cherry-picked entourage of journalists on a tour of the company’s first brick-and-mortar retail outlet located in the second level of Tysons Corner Center in Virginia. “Literally half the store is devoted to solutions. Because people don’t just want to buy personal computers any more. They want to know what they can do with them,” he later explained in promo footage shown to the gathering of devotees at the Macworld Expo 2001 conference.
As with all things Apple, pundits predicted an epic fail. The store couldn’t possibly make enough revenue to cover the cost of overhead, let alone keep itself running, they argued. Naysayers came out of the woodwork all guns blazing, calling the expensive retailing experiment based on an unproven concept a huge mistake that would cost the company dearly. Some critics even called Apple crazy to gamble away its fortunes. And it wasn’t just the pundits and haters.
The spectacular glass cylinder store in Shanghai’s Pudong district opened for business last year. It is now the company’s most profitable store, a result of the “Apple effect” stemming from huge iPad and iPhone popularity in China
BusinessWeek confidently ran a story entitled Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work. Retail consultant David Goldstein of Channel Marketing Corp. predicted, “I give Apple two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake”. TheStreet.com opined that it’s “desperation time in Cupertino, California” in a story headlined Apple’s Scrapping the Bottom of the Barrel. And just last year, Simon Mills of London’s Daily infuriated Apple fans by comparing excited shoppers to“cult followers passively standing in front of screens, their faces riddled with the anxiety and discomfort of someone terrified they are behind the technological times”. No, really – that’s the quote.
But Apple Stores defied logic against all odds and went on to become a unique retailing venture which gave the successful California-based gadget maker a recognizable public face. The stores are Apple’s signature street presence, with their superior visual articulation that has been captivating fans worldwide and guiding every brand experience. As you know, Apple Stores turned ten today as Apple ended the March quarter with 323 stores and greeted one billion retail visitors. In addition to the US, Apple Stores today reach far-flung places like Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, UK and Japan.
Glass staircase suspended mid-air, bright and simple furniture, latest gadgets that can be touched and played with – it must be an Apple store
Apple isn’t resting on its laurels. They are on track to open forty new stores by the end of September, of which three quarters are planned outside the US. New openings will include a fifth China store and high-profile retail outlets in Berlin and Barcelona. In all, Apple is now being praised as America’s greatest retailer. But what was it that had encouraged Apple to set out on such an adventurous yet risky journey in the first place?
Wow, just wow. Online retailer Amazon just announced that Kindle books have surpassed print books in terms of sales. Folks are now buying more Kindle books than their hardcover and paperback counterparts combined. Amazon said that for every 100 print books customers have picked up since April 1, they have sold 105 Kindle books. The figure excludes free Kindle books and includes hardcover and paperback books where there is no Kindle edition. More amazing facts follow…
Would you believe me if I told you a year ago that the Apple police would have reverted its stance on the App Store nudity? Well they didn’t. Yes, some boobs are now OK, but undesirable Playboy bunnies are not. That didn’t stop Hugh Hefner, the founder and namesake of the Playboy empire, to find a clever solution.
As noted by TUAW, you can now trade-in your iOS devices via Amazon’s Electronics Trade-In program. If you wanna get rid off your aging iPhone, simply mail in the device to Amazon in exchange for some Amazon gift card credits.
A sampling of other iOS device trade-in prices includes up to $114 for iPod classics, $235 for first-gen 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads and $162 for an 8 GB iPhone 3GS. That’s definitely way more than you’ll get if you let your old iPhone rattle around in a desk drawer after upgrading to a new one.
The program, currently in beta, accepts other consumer electronics devices, not just Apple’s. Some product eligibility criteria applies…
A Nielsen study issued yesterday has brought to light interesting stuff regarding how we spend time with out mobile gadgets. The research note, sourced from 12,000 respondents, revealed that seven out of ten people use their tablets while watching television, presumable to fetch more information about the topic at hand, check quotes and weather, access their electronic programming guide and more. Nearly the same percentage of smartphone owners (68 percent) play with their handset while in front of the living room tube. This compares to only 35 percent of e-reader owners. Here’s a couple more interesting findings plus another colorful chart.
Infinity Blade is the killer app Apple fans usually run on their iPhone or iPad to showcase the graphical prowess of iOS gadgets to their Android-toting friends. It’s arguably one of the best iOS games around and thus far the only title based on Epic’s Unreal Engine. Developer Chair Entertainment has kept the game alive with two big content updates. Today’s third and most ambitious update has brought us brand new multiplayer and survival modes in a 584MB download. You can fight your friends over the Internet via Game Center’s match-making feature, compare your respective scores, check out your unlocked items and so forth…
Gartner is out with their first quarter 2011 mobile phone market survey. The results bode well for both Apple and Google as both tech giants grew their respective share of the smartphone market estimated at 100.8 million quarterly units, almost double the 54.5 million units shipped in the year-ago quarter. Smartphones are eating dumphones’ lunch, too, accounting for almost one quarter (23.6 percent) of the 427.8 million quarterly handsets, an 85 percent annual increase.
Apple’s global handset market share is 3.9 percent based on sales of 16.89 million iPhones, up from 2.3 percent a year earlier. California-based team beat Research In Motion (13 million units), now ranked fifth, and is well ahead of first-tier handset vendors Sony Ericsson (7.92 million units), Motorola (8.79 million units) and HTC (9.31 million units). Samsung (68.8 million handsets) and Nokia (107.56 million phones) lead as the world’s #2 and #1 cellphone vendors, respectively.
While Apple doubled iPhone sales from the year-ago quarter, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson stumbled. Apple is now chasing LG – which sold nearly 24 million handsets during the quarter – for the title of the #3 cellphone maker globally, which is no small feat knowing Apple avoids cheap dumbphones and only sell high-end devices. How did Apple and Google do in the smartphone segment?
