Apple just posted iOS 4.2 Gold Master build in the iOS Developer Center. You can go download the GM seed now. Look for updates on what’s new in this (almost) final build here on MacStories in a few minutes.
Build number is 8C134. It’s a 549MB download for iPad and, as usual, it’s also available for iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G and iPod Touch 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen. Read more
When Steve Jobs announced the “iAd” program in April, a few people claimed they had seen that term somewhere else before. As CNET reports, Apple indeed settled a lawsuit in July over the “iAd” trademark with company innovate media, which had been using the “iAd” term since 2006 and was even granted two trademarks in 2008.
The interesting part is not the amount of the settlement (that we’ll likely never know), but rather the history behind the disclosure of this settlement. Consor, intellectual asset management company, posted a release on their website detailing how four of their clients managed to close favorable settlements over trademark lawsuits they had filed. In the release, they mentioned: “iAds, a 7-figure settlement from Apple Computer in a trademark infringement case.” Read more
According to Canalys’ latest report, Apple grabbed 26% of the U.S. smartphone market (still considered the biggest and most relevant in the world) but Google, thanks to its multitude of devices running Android, is still leading with nearly 44%.
The numbers, which refer to Q3 2010, also show that Apple really took the lead from RIM, stuck at 24%. Nokia is still leading the worldwide share with a resonant 33%, and Google’s share is expected to increase as more devices running Froyo and the future Android Gingerbread ship.
In the meantime, Apple somehow managed to obtain a 50% worldwide profit share with the iPhone. Not bad.
Microsoft is currently distributing 4 apps in Apple’s App Store: Bing, Wonderwall, Windows Live Messenger and Tag Reader. Plus, Office for Mac 2011 came out last week with much anticipation. According to a tidbit by iPhoneDevCamp founder Raven Zachary, Microsoft has a “dedicated” iPad team in one of its offices in California.
As Electronista also speculates, it’s not clear whether the Microsoft employees Zachary heard talking at a bar (oh, these bars in California) were referring to a development group for iPad or a product team focused on building a Microsoft alternative to the iPad. The former option is more likely, as we heard rumors of Microsoft developing software for Apple’s tablet before and, frankly, I think an iPad version of Office would sell like hotcakes. With Apple growing strong in Enterprise, a full-featured version of Office 2011 for iPad would be huge. Read more
According to the latest numbers by GfK Japan (via Analytica1st), the iPhone has become Japan’s best selling mobile phone. The numbers refer to the week October 18-24 and are the result of a survey across 4,000 point of sales.
As you can see, the iPhone, both in the 16GB and 32gB edition, is the only Softbank device in the chart, which includes cellphones by NTT DoCoMo and KDDI au. The iPhone 4 came out in Japan on June 24th, but Apple –as usual – hasn’t released country-specific numbers of units sold.
Apple updated its “Jobs at Apple” mini-site to include additional information about the carrier possibilities at Apple Retail, new jobs positions and a video introduction to Apple’s retail philosophy.
Join us at the Apple Retail Store, the unique gathering place where people come to discover Apple products. Show your passion and expertise as you connect customers with our products and help integrate products into their lives. Be a part of our team and change the way our customers work, play, create, and communicate.
Both the revamped page and video focus on detailing the incredible experience that is working at Apple, being part of something that can “actually change people’s lives” and that can “connect customers with Apple products”.
The main page also features recently opened retail stores with positions available: El Paseo Village - Palm Desert, CA; Boise Town Square - Boise, ID; River Park Square - Spokane, WA; Summit Mall - Akron, OH; University Park Mall - South Bend, IN.
VLC, the popular media player for Windows, Mac and Linux that landed on the iPad in September and on the iPhone last week, may soon be gone from the App Store. Rémi Denis-Courmont, one of the primary developers of VLC, explained that Videolan sent a formal notification of copyright infringement to Apple regarding the way VLC for iOS is distributed in the App Store. VLC for iOS is developed by French 3rd party studio Applidium.
Basically, here’s the problem: VLC is an open source program distributed under the GNU General Public License (also known as “GPL”) while VLC for iOS is, as you may guess, distributed under Apple’s iTunes Terms and Conditions, which don’t allow users to install both free and paid apps on more than 5 devices. This restriction is also known as “DRM” which stands for Digital Rights Management. So even if VLC for iOS is free, Videolan can’t accept the fact that Apple’s DRM goes against the original GNU license VLC’s code is based on. Read more
Earlier today Apple silently updated the Ping sidebar in iTunes, which is now simply called “iTunes Sidebar” and doesn’t require a software update.
Together with a name change, the sidebar now features the comeback of Genius Recommendations, a functionality many users were missing since iTunes 10.0.1 introduced the “Ping Sidebar”.
Ping’s “like” and “post” actions are still available in the sidebar, and so is Recent Activity. Genius’ items are listed below them. To turn Genius on, click on “Store” then “Turn On Genius” in the menubar.
To remove Ping’s dropdown menu, follow our previous tutorial.
We noticed this last night and we thought it might be a temporary glitch, but 14 hours later reviews and ratings are still nowhere to be found in the App Store.
If you try to open an App Store app page, in fact, you’ll notice that ratings and user reviews have simply disappeared. The “Customers also bought” section is in there, and reviews are accessible through Apple’s web view for iTunes pages, but you can’t find them in the App Store.
