Apple

We’ve been hoping Light Peak might make an appearance in new Macs since the technology first made an appearance working with a lab demo Mac Pro in 2009. We’ve been excited for the super-fast and super-flexible connectivity standard ever since — now it seems there’s a way to go before its ready to hit the market, according to Intel.

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Hacked iTunes accounts are available for sale across China at prices starting as low as a few dollars, a report explains. These hacked account details (which include credit card details) were being made available for sale via China’s largest retail website, Taobao.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PajqY0VgYiU&w=670&h=401]

NBC last night teamed up with DC Comics to premiere one of its new shows on iPads in advance of its TV screening on Jan. 9.
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Welcome to the new media order, as described by Nielsen — a new world in which US mobile phone Web users almost eclipse the number of US homes with a TV; a world in which Apple’s iPhone accounts for three of the top ten smartphones used and more.
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COMPUTERWORLD: This is not the year the iPad meets its match. Analyst Michael Gartenberg doesn’t see anything to threaten Apple, even as AAPL moves beyond dominance of the tablet market — as its mind-share grows, iPad is making like the iPod and defining the tablet market.

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You like movies? We like movies. We all like movies and now it seems Comcast has a super plan which means you’ll be watching huge amounts of video content on your iPad. Hooray!
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Interesting: it seems the first big deal component Apple may manufacture with its newly-licensed LiquidMetal alloys (beyond that SIM card remover shipped with iPhone before) isn’t the body or the antenna — it’s the battery!
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We’re all agog waiting on the introduction of the Mac App Store tomorrow (Jan 6). It seems likely to eclipse the CES clamor. Now we have this tiny nugget to share: You’ll be able to review Mac Apps just like you review iOS apps.

Sure, we know this isn’t a massive surprise: stop and think about it and it makes perfect sense that you’ll be able to put virtual pen to paper to leave others with your impressions of those Mac Apps you love or loathe.
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The iPad is taking a lesson from the iPod and beginning to seize a place in US schools, some of which are beginning trials to test the efficacy of providing the Apple tablets to kids, even while New York City orders thousands of iPads for its schools.
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That’s the conclusion from Forrester Research in their latest research which predicts US tablet sales will double this year.

They now anticipate tablet sales last year of (a deeply conservative) 10.3 million units, thanks to stronger than expected iPad sales. And they think iPad will take the ‘lion’s share’ of a market they expect will double in size (to 24.1 million units) this year, despite all those new CES-introduced ‘competitors’.
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TidySongs, a popular iTunes organization application, has taken a look at around one million iTunes libraries over the last two years and has reported their findings.

• The number of songs in an average customer’s iTunes library is 7,160.
• The average number of songs missing album artwork is 4,230
• The average number of songs in an iTunes library missing the name of the artist is 490.
• The average number of songs missing track or year information is 1,984.
• The average number of duplicate songs is 814.

COMPUTERWORLD: Smart investors are paying attention to Apple’s [AAPL] rapidly expanding iOS value chain, taking strategic holdings in Apple’s component supply partners, and this last few days has seen markets whisper one name, Skyworks Solutions [SWKS] — will that company drive LTE support to iPhone and iPad 2.0?

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Apple isn’t at CES once again this year and as per usual Cupertino’s shadow looms above the giant US trade show, where it seems competitors, including Microsoft, intend introducing their own iPad competitors, even as we learn that existing Android tablets may never get a software upgrade. Some highlights:
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Iomega is using CES to introduce Iomega SuperHero, a new combined iPhone docking station that’s also equipped with the capacity to record an iPhone data back-up when the device is inserted into the slot.

Some may argue that this duplicates what Apple’s iTunes does on its own — the media management software takes frequent back-ups of phone data. However, this doesn’t always mean the data you most need is backed-up in time.
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Hardmac reports today some of Steve Jobs’ latest thoughts on BluRay.

He admitted that retrospectively he feels ashamed that Apple’s name is associated to Blu-ray, as he thinks that BD supporting associations look today more like Mafia than anything else.

Jobs famously called BluRay a ‘Bag of Hurt’ during a Q&A after a MacBook Event in 2008.

Concerning authoring on Blu-ray, it seems impossible to provide software supporting such format for consumer market. In addition to DRM, here it is the cost of licenses that slow down the entire process; one would have to start paying 3,000 USD to AACS, then 80,000 USD to Sony, 40,000 USD to Sonic, etc.

Hardmac also reports that the next version of Final Cut Pro will come in March or April 2011, which is what we’ve seen in Jobs emails.

Finally, they say that not everyone is happy with the Xserve axing but they don’t know what comes next.  We’ve heard some things.
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Apple’s battle with Android continues with the latest Nielsen market share data revealing iOS remains the dominant smartphone OS, at least right now.

Android is picking up users: according to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among those who purchased a smartphone in the last six months (40%) makes it the leading OS among recent acquirers.
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Apple remains the world’s most valuable company (after Exxon) with a market cap that this morning exceeded $300 billion, reports declare. On active trade on the Dow Apple (AAPL) rose $7 to hit a new record intraday high this morning — right now Apple stock sits near $330 per share for a market cap of over $302 billion.
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CES news is beginning to trickle through now, and we anticipate at least some AirPlay-enabled systems from the big audio dynamos will be waiting in the wings; meanwhile, WallWizard will be at the show to demonstrate its range of motorised iPhone/iPad-controlled HDTV mounts.
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SAI breaks down Piper Jaffay Apple follower Gene Munster’s predictions for 2011, complete with probabilities.  I’ve got to say, these are pretty conservative.  (I like Appleholic’s 2011 list much more).  Anyway, here we go…

– Verizon launch of the iPhone: Probability 95% (March qtr) (our est)

– Mac App Store: Probability 100% (Jan. 6 launch)

– iTunes cloud services: Probability 90%

– iPad geographic expansion: Probability 100%

– iPad subsidies from carriers: Probability 80%

– OS X Lion: Probability 100% (summer 2011)

And here’s when we can expect upgrades to the hardware:

– iPhone (March quarter). We are modeling for Apple to launch a CDMA version of the iPhone at Verizon in the March-11 quarter. The fifth generation iPhone will likely ship this summer with NFC capability.

– iPad (spring). We believe the second generation iPad will launch in spring 2011.

– Macs (uncertain). We have moderate confidence that Apple will release redesigned MacBook Pros in 1H11 and redesigned iMacs in 2H11.

– iPods (fall). As usual, we expect Apple to refresh its iPods in the fall.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZNxjBKI0fI&w=640&h=385]

Clear discontinued the iSpot personal 4G hotspot for iOS devices yesterday.  The iSpot was easily hacked to work like its more expensive counterpart with all computers and even had trouble with some iPads without hacking.

Clear recently dropped the price of the iSpot by 80% and will continue selling them until they sell out of retail inventory.

Sprint (who own 54% of Clear) is also about to announce a new Mifi device which may also account for the iSpot discontinuation (below).  One major drawback of the iSpot is that it only works in the few spots that have Clear 4G, it doesn’t drop down to 3G if you leave a 4G area.  The new device, which also uses Sprint’s 3G network, does.

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Skype just updated their Skype application for iOS to include video chat functionality. It works both over WiFi and 3G networks and two-way video calling is supported by the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4, and iPhone 3GS. The iPad and third generation iPod touch support one-way video calling. Just like on Apple’s FaceTime application Skype for iPhone will video conference in both portrait and landscape orientations.

Seth and I just tested out the application and it looks very smooth on both ends. It even works in the background but your face gets frozen for the person on the other end (audio still works). Just like with FaceTime there is an option for the iPhone user to display either the front camera’s view, back camera’s or no camera. We have more screenshots of Skype video chat after the break.

We also ran some tests over 3G and it looked very smooth. I was on 3G and Seth was on WiFi and he saw me as crisp as I looked over my WiFi network. My view of him was also smooth and when he pointing his camera at a moving fan that looked smooth as well. Also, we tested it on an iPad (which still is blown up, not a universal binary) and it looked as expected without the camera. When used with an iPhone 3GS you should get the option to see the user’s back camera. Release notes, official promo video, and more screenshots are after the break.

Update: Skype video calls over 3G will use around 3.4 MB of data per minute. We calculated this by looking at our usage info on our iPhone 4 before and after a one minute (timed of course) call. Below are our screenshots:

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