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MacStories Reading List: April 8 - April 15

The MacStories Reading List is back, and it features the best articles about the most important news of the past weeks. From the Instagram acquisition to renewed interest in bigger iPhones with different screens, the Apple blogging machine picked up steam after the release of the new iPad and is now looking forward to WWDC ‘12, which Apple is rumored to be announcing soon.

Until then, put on your favorite reading glasses, and follow us after the break for this week’s best Apple-related writing. Read more

Apple Confirms 10th Retail Store in Italy

(The location of the Apple Store at Porta di Roma. Image via Macity)

As first noted by setteBIT, Apple officially acknowledged the existence of its 10th retail store in Italy, at the Porta di Roma shopping mall. As previously reported, the retail store is rumored to be opening on Saturday, April 21, albeit no official confirmation in regards to the grand opening has been made yet. The “Galleria Porta di Roma” shopping mall, located near the GRA highway of Rome, is open from 9 AM to 10 PM during the weekends, and it includes 220 retail stores. The new store’s dedicated webpage will be available here.

Two weeks ago, a rumor suggested the Porta di Roma Apple retail store would open on April 21st; on the same day every year, the city of Rome commemorates its founding in 753 BC, The celebration is known as “Natale di Roma” (Birthday of Rome), and such date would certainly provide an opportunity for Apple to play around the marketing tagline of the store opening.

Apple’s first retail store in Italy opened in April 2007 at Roma Est, another shopping mall located outside Rome. The new Apple store at Porta di Roma will be the company no. 365 worldwide, Italy’s 10th, and the 118th to open outside the United States.

Apple Releases Standalone Flashback Malware Removal Tool

Yesterday, Apple released an update to Java on OS X to include a removal tool for common variants of the Flashback malware. A few minutes ago, Apple also released a standalone version of the Flashback malware removal tool, which contains the same code found in “Java for OS X 2012-003”.

The removal tool has also been released in a standalone package installer for those users who don’t have Java installed on their computers. Once installed, if malware is found, “a dialog will be presented notifying the user that malware was removed”. In some cases, completely deleting the Flashback malware might require a system restart.

Apple’s Flashback malware removal tool can be downloaded here. In the past week, a number of third-party removal tools have also surfaced online.

Apple Loses A Few Legal Battles, Wins One And Responds To DOJ Allegations

The last 24 hours has seen a number of developments regarding various legal issues that involve Apple. It’s not the most riveting news, so rather than writing them up as separate posts, we’ve decided to combine them into one, easily digestible post.

Apple Responds to DOJ Allegations

Late yesterday, somewhat belatedly, Apple issued AllThingsD with a statement responding to the DOJ’s allegations of collusion with the big book publishers. It was a similar statement that the other publishers made earlier and conveyed the idea that Apple’s entrance into the e-book market disrupted Amazon’s prior monopoly in the market.

The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

Apple Permitted To Intervene in Lodsys Case

You may recall that Lodsys filed lawsuits against a number of iOS developers last year for allegedly violating their patents. Apple filed a motion to intervene in the case last year, claiming that the licensing it has attained from Lodsys itself also protects third party developers on the App Store. The court yesterday agreed with Apple and has granted permission to Apple’s motion to intervene. Unfortunately, for many developers this is too little too late, with many settling with Lodsys early on to avoid costly legal fees.

Apple Loses Attempt To Restore Push Email to German iCloud Users

Apple had been forced to suspend email push services for German iCloud users earlier in February this year after Motorola succeeded in bringing an injunction against Apple. Today the Mannheim regional court upheld that decision and Apple will be required to pay damages to Motorola Mobility.

Apple Required to Compensate Tokyo Couple For iPod Nano that Burst Into Flames

In July 2010, a first generation iPod nano spontaneously burst into flames and caused burns to the owner’s hand that took more than a month to heal. Apple was required to pay the owner approximately US$7,400 for medical fees and compensation for the pain and suffering. Apple began a worldwide replacement program of the device last November.

[via, AllThingsD, TUAW, TNW, Cult of Mac]

iCloud’s First Six Months: The Developers Weigh In

On October 12th, 2011, iCloud launched to millions of iOS users impatiently waiting to start getting their devices to sync with Apple’s new platform, which CEO Tim Cook went on to call the company’s next big insight for the next decade. Six months and 85 million customers later, iCloud has proven to be a substantial improvement to sync a user’s email, contacts, address book, and other data accessed by Apple apps. With third-party developers, however, adoption of iCloud sync and storage features has turned out to be a bit tricker, and possibly less intuitive than Apple’s own implementation due to the early nature of the platform. Read more

Apple’s Java for OS X 2012-003 Update Removes Common Flashback Variants

Two days after their initial announcement and on the heels of F-Secure’s removal tool, checking Software Update on your Mac should prompt you for Apple’s latest Java update for OS X. The 2012-003 update removes common variants of the Flashback trojan, as well as disabling automatic execution of Java applets. While you will be able to turn the ability to run Java applets back on through the Java Preferences app, it will automatically be disabled if you don’t consistently access or run applets after a period of time.

For more information, you can read the support article or the supplementary information provided through Software Update.

[Apple Support via The Loop]

The (Big) Numbers Of The App Store Platform

Today’s news that Paper, a sketching app for iPad, has been downloaded over 1.5 million times in two weeks made me think about the size of the App Store platform and ecosystem of devices. Launched in 2008, the App Store now extends across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and distributes over half a million apps to customers (588964 apps per AppShopper). Last month, Apple reached the impressive milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded from the App Store – an important number that tops a history of exponential growth and adoption.

Below, I have compiled a list of noteworthy milestones reached by App Store developers in order to put Paper’s numbers in better perspective. For more App Store-related numbers, check out Wikipedia’s milestones table and our Mac App Store: Year One overview.

On January 24th, 2012, Apple announced the company paid over $4 billion to developers since the App Store’s launch in 2008. Over 315 million iOS devices have been sold to date; with these numbers, an average of 79 apps has been downloaded for every iOS device.

App Downloads: A History of Numbers

2009

July: Dictionary.com reaches 2.3 million iPhone app downloads.

2010

March: Doodle Jump for iPhone sells 3 million copies since launch.

June: Skype announces 5 million iPhone app downloads in four days.

June: Angry Birds for iPhone has been downloaded over 5 million times since its launch on December 2009.

September: Gameloft announces 20 million paid app downloads of its iOS games since the App Store’s launch.

2011

January: Pixelmator grosses $1 million in under 20 days.

January: Autodesk announces Sketchbook Pro for the Mac App Store has sold twice as many copies as the regular app in a year.

February: Fruit Ninja for iPhone hits 6 million paid downloads in 10 months.

May: Talking Tom 2 hits 1 million downloads in a single day.

June: Game publisher Chillingo announces 140 million downloads for its iOS apps since the App Store’s launch in 2008.

June: Gameloft announces 200 million iOS app downloads in 3 years.

October: Autodesk announces 3 million downloads of AutoCAD WS for iOS and Android.

October: Discovr announces 1 million downloads.

December: Flipboard for iPhone gets 1 million downloads in its first week.

2012

January: World of Goo downloaded over 1 million times by App Store and Mac App Store customers in 13 months.

February: Scribblenaut Remix sells 1 million copies since its launch in October 2011.

March: Camera+ sells 7 million copies in 1.5 years on the App Store (previously: 6 million copies in January 2012; 3 million copies in June 2011)

March: Angry Birds Space reports 10 million downloads in 10 days (the app is available on multiple platforms and devices, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac).

March: iPhoto for iOS downloaded by over 1 million unique users in under 10 days.

April: Draw Something hits 50 million downloads in under 2 months.

April: Paper for iPad is downloaded 1.5 million times in two weeks.

April: MLB.com At Bat 12 reports 3 million downloads. The app was released at the end of February 2012 on multiple platforms (including Android) and its developers also reported over 800,000 live streams per day.

Apple Increasing Security of Apple ID Accounts on iOS→

Apple Increasing Security of Apple ID Accounts on iOS

The Next Web reports Apple has begun enhancing the security of Apple ID accounts on iOS devices and iTunes by asking users to pick three security questions.

In the past 24 hours, Apple appears to have started prompting iOS devices owners and those with Apple IDs within iTunes to make their accounts more secure, requiring them to pick three security questions and enter their answers when they download a new app.

The company is also asking users to enter a backup email address, in order to better protect their device but also their account (which is tied to Apple’s Retail website and all of its media services).

Apple’s motivation to educate users on security by urging them to enable security questions is laudable, especially considering the many cases of phishing and hacked App Store accounts reported in the past years. However, it is worth noting how, on the other hand, several users have been asking Apple to be more flexible with entering an account’s password on the iOS App Store, letting users download free apps and updates without asking for a password after periods of inactivity.

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