iOS Devices

You could say that Apple is so far dominating the market for apps in portable devices.  Or you could, like a Gartner report reported by Ars states, say that Apple is absolutely obliterating the rest of the field.  Using their slide rules and impecable guessing abilities, they’ve concluded that Apple is responsible for all but .6% of the global market in app sales.  And that is without a tablet store.

That’s just the begining. As app sales increase, estimated revenues go from $4.2 billion in 2009 to $6.8 billion this year, to about $30 billion in 2013.

The report also noted that advertising wsa going to play a bigger part in app revenue and that Apple picking up Quattro was a smart move.

Is the Tablet unveiling not enough to get you excited?  Well, FoxNews reporter Clayton Morris has a little more information on the event.  According to his sources, not only will the tablet be unveiled, a whole new iPhone OS (4.0) and iLife suite will be revealed. 

I spoke to a source at Apple this morning, before the invite hit my inbox, who said the event would likely focus on three projects: The tablet device, iPhone 4, and a new round of iLife 2010 software. While we won’t see new iPhone hardware just yet, we will see the next-generation software.

The trio of products makes sense.  You are going to need some apps on the tablet and what better way to start than with Apple’s iLife suite?  Also, word is that Apple’s been holding up any releases of the iPhone OS because it contained references to the tablet.  Obviously, once the tablet is revealed, Apple can continue releasing iPhone software, though Fox didn’t specify whether or not it would be ready at the event or just shown off.

Update: This isn’t getting great reviews so we’re pulling it off the front page.

Adobe and ScanR just released Acrobat for the iPhone (free App Store). The application allows you to access your Acrobat.com files from anywhere but probably most impressively, it allows you to fax anything on your iPhone to any phone number via an in-app purchase.  You can snap a picture of a document or whatever and fax it to someone only using your iPhone.

Screenshots below.  From the developer:

You can use the iPhone 3Gs camera to scan physical documents right into your Acrobat.com account! The application comes with the ability to scan up to 5 pages and fax 2 pages for free; then it will prompt you to purchase additional scan and fax pages through in-app Purchase. This is the perfect complement to your Acrobat.com account to let you work from anywhere, at anytime!

via iClarified

Apple today sent out invitations to the January 27th presentation that we’ve been hearing much about lately. Along with the colorful invite graphics, they included the caption ‘Come see our latest creation’.

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Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is now available in the App Store for $10.  We’ll just leave it at that. (via Touch Arcade)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmcT8bh99HQ&w=600&h=385]

When can we have this on the iPhone is our only question:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8BcndMxu44&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1]

Don’t you just love the term ‘iPhone killer’? The term itself at this point implies that the device it describes won’t be such. But now that the buzz from the Nexus One is starting to wane, we need a new king of the hill Android device to crown the next iPhone killer.

Enter the ‘Supersonic’.

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Patently Apple is going over all of Apple’s past patent applications that deal with tablets and a tablet interface this week (coincidence?).  There is a lot there and they detail so much of what Apple has been working on in the tablet space.  It is almost enough to make your head explode.  Not convinced?  Check out some of the images below.  We’re especially fans of the DJ and video application patents.  Oh, and this is only part 1.

So you want to be a lawyer – well, here

Digg founder Kevin Rose does a quick demo of the Square payment system for iPhone (oh yeah, he’s now an investor). The system looks pretty innovative overall but it will be interesting to see if they can get the credit card companies to lower their margins on the transactions enough to make it worthwhile.  

What percentage of a credit card transaction would you be willing to give up for the convenience?  3%? 6%?  10%?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BP5ax1qs5o&w=600&h=385]

By the way, were you quick enough to get the numbers off of Kevin Rose’s Platinum Amex card?

Mark Twain once said:

From one citizen you gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius. “

Apple might have gotten their order of operations in Mauritius reversed as well.  Orange is selling the iPhone in Mauritius but without an iTunes store.  That means that you can’t buy anything from Apple, but you can use the iTunes application to upload media.  Without a jailbreak there is no way to get your hands on any of those 100,000+ apps out there.

As Steven Sande notes at TUAW, Mauritian iPhone users are trying to get Apple to build them an iTunes store.  They’ve even set up a Facebook page.

We’ve confirmed Orange is definitely selling the iPhone in Mauritius though nowhere in the advertising do they mention that the iPhone can download apps, music or movies.  In fact, it is conspicuously absent.

Not to worry though citizens of Mauritius, Apple has just hired Liesbeth Matthieu to be its iTunes Localization Producer.  She’s got a French and English background which should be perfect for building out an iTunes store for your French-English populace.

We wondered yesterday why Skype hadn’t enabled Push Notifications in their latest iPhone update, and more importantly, why we couldn’t use Skype, or any voice over IP service, over 3G?  Peter Parkes (not Spiderman), a Skype blogger, wrote in to clarify a few things for us.

First of all, they are working on Push Notifications.  It’s coming.  Soon.

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