Even while it emerges Google’s Google TV plans seem to be foundering (FIRE SALE!), Apple has announced that its new Apple TV will ship its millionth unit later this week.
While many hope the A4 chip inside Apple TV might be enabled to run some apps one day, many also consider the Netflix support within Apple TV to be the big win for sales.
Press Release follows:
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So much for Thinking Different™: Looks like Apple may have joined Amazon, Banc of America, Paypal and other corporations which have evicted Wikileaks from their servers — the briefly-available Wikileaks app for iPhone and iPad has been kicked out of the App Store.
The Time person of the year public vote-winning Julian Assange-founded Wikileaks has attracted controversy with the leak of a series of US diplomatic cables which illustrate the seamier side of international diplomacy.
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Apple has informed developers of applications and widgets on Apple’s downloads website that the site will be closing down come January 6th when the Mac App Store opens for business. Apple believes that the Mac App Store will truly be the best place to get Mac apps and this is another indication of that. One feature the downloads site has is access to Dashboard widgets. No word on whether the Mac App Store will be home to dashboard widgets and if not, Apple should think about leaving that portion up online.
Thank you for making the Mac OS X Download site a great destination with apps that offer users new ways to work, play, learn, and create on their Mac. We recently announced that on January 6, 2011, the Mac App Store will open to users around the world, presenting you with an exciting, new opportunity to reach millions of customers. Since the introduction of the App Store in 2008, we’ve been thrilled with the incredible support from developers and the enthusiastic response from users. Now we’re bringing the revolutionary experience of the App Store to Mac OS X. Because we believe the Mac App Store will be the best destination for users to discover, purchase, and download your apps, we will no longer offer apps on the Mac OS X Downloads site. Instead, beginning January 6, we will be directing users to explore the range of apps available on the Mac App Store. We appreciate your support of the Mac platform and hope you’ll take advantage of this new opportunity to showcase your apps to even more users. To learn how you can offer your apps on the Mac App Store, visit the Apple Developer website at <http://developer.apple.com/programs/mac/>.
This is the world’s biggest iPhone and it is situated in the world famous St. pancras International station. It isn’t actually an iPhone, however, it is in fact a bank of 56 iPads all set up to work together in an iOS nod to signify the release of Lara Croft Guardian of Light (below) on the App Store.
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Electronic Arts set off an iApp price war last week when it discounted many of its games to just $0.99, sparking the release of Tap Tap Revenge 4 for free and a big games sale from other iOS heavyweight, Namco.
All the app makers are engaged in a stiff fight to populate the iTunes App Store top ten lists in time for Christmas — after all, Apple’s lists won’t be updated from December 23, so grabbing a good slot on those lists now is likely to translate into great sales opportunities as all those new iPads hit the store.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9JUwOavKdk&w=640&h=385]
The 4th generation of arguably the most popular iPhone music game has just hit the App Store: Tap Tap Revenge 4. For those not familiar, Tap Tap Revenge was around long before the App Store. It was the premier iPhone game on the jailbroken app market. Since then it brought in Tapulous over a million dollars a month and now Tapulous is owned by Disney. Going back to Tap Tap Revenge 4 the new, free app brings loads of improvements and new features.
First, the new version brings over 100 free tracks to the table. These include songs from popular artists/bands like Lady Gaga, Linkin Park, and My Chemical Romance. (List of several more popular artists in TTR4 is after the break.) TTR4 introduces a “like” button which when pushed displays an avatar showing who else likes the respective track. Tapulous has also done some iOS 4 housekeeping by adding both Game Center and Retina Display support.
Some new social features are now present such as the ability to share scores via Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail. Perhaps the most impressive feature in the new game is the “Arcade Mode.” This new mode presents new tapping obstacles which makes the game even more challenging and when coupled with the new up-to-the-minute global leader boards, the game should be all the more fun. Let us know how you like it all in the comments. Tap Tap Revenge 4 is now free on the iTunes App Store and you can check out some screenshots after the break.
Facebook, who count 55,060,129 monthly active iOS app users, today updated their iPhone/iPod touch app with a few new features but mostly bug fixes, listed below:
– Improved reliability in chat and messages
– Improved notifications UI
– Fixed memory usage
– Fixed some crashes
– Walls you cannot post on no longer show the text field at the top
– Restore ability to post as a page that you admin
– Fixed group photos
– Various Places improvements
Is it silly to expect a iPad app at this point?
All 55 million of you, hit the App Store updates or head over here.
Screenies below…
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News Corp sources tell News Corp reporters that News Corp’s iPad app, the Daily will drop on January 17th.
Given that News Corp. has hired dozens of blabby journalists for the Daily, and interviewed many more, lots of other details about the app/service have leaked out already: It will come out daily, it will sell for 99 cents a week, it will use lots of video and it will have cool multimedia bells and whistles, including some kind of 3-D effect that lots of people are very excited about. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs may or may not participate in a launch event.
The date has moved around a lot but it appears that it will be coming at some point in the future and carry a $.99/week price. Other billionaires launching iPad publications recently include Richard Branson.
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Apple this morning confirmed it intends opening its Mac App Store on Thursday, January 6.
The store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature both paid and free apps in various categories.
“The App Store revolutionized mobile apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”
Oh and Devs? You need to submit apps by Dec 31 to be in the grand opening.
Press Release follows:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVeKbsFL_tM&w=670&h=527]
While we wait for iTunes in the cloud, we may as well begin using an iTunes in the cloud service that isn’t from Apple, a free service for iPhones from mSpot, the app for which is now available via the iTunes App Store.
What’s it do? Essentially it is like a music locker service to which you upload your music in order to then enjoy streaming access to that music via your mSpot app.
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I can’t wait until my iPod touch/Mifi is my only phone. This is another step in that direction.
Google today announced Google Voice for iPad and iPod touch as well as some significant updates. No VoIP gateway yet, but you know it is coming.
What’s New in Version 1.1.0.636
* Support for iPod Touch
* iPod Touch and iPhone can now make calls using Click2Call
* Do Not Disturb setting
* Text forwarding is automatically disabled when registering for Push notifications
* Added Text forwarding setting to the app
* Easier to make calls from the phone Address Book
* Removed annoying OK dialog every time you send an SMS
* Fixed crashes caused by text messages that begin with a space character
* Fixed bug that caused the entire Inbox to load
* Fixed bug that caused Contact pictures to get mixed up
* Improved access to Contact groups
* Improved speed of Contact search
The Google Voice app is available to download from the Apple App Store today. You’ll need an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch with iOS 3.1 or later and a valid Google Voice account to use the app. At this time, Google Voice is available in the U.S. only.
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Apple is deadly serious with its App-driven vision for life in the clouds, with a new patent application describing its new way to share and buy apps from the cloud.
Published today and spotted by Patently Apple the application reveals the concepts behind the Apple vision, whch essentially allows users to share apps on their phones — say you were impressed the first time you saw Angry Birds, for example.
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Apple is promoting the best of everything in iTunes 2010 this morning. Their year end round up marks the top selling and grossing apps in a number of categories. Notably, Apple cleaned up in the iPad grossing section with its iWork Apps.
iPad Top Free, Top Paid, Top Grossing
iPhone: Top Free, Top Paid, Top Grossing
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