If analysts’s predictions are to be believed, the numbers shared this morning by Needham’s Charlie Wolf and Susquehanna’s Jeff Fidacaro are surely interesting. With 16.24 million iPhones and 7.33 million iPads sold in the last quarter, Wolf notes that 300 millions smartphones were sold last year, and Apple’s sales trajectory appears to be “higher than expected”. Wolf estimates 75 million iPhone units will be sold in 2011; last year, he predicted 40 million sales and Apple actually sold more, 47.5 million iPhones. Read more
Analysts Share Predictions of Apple’s 2011 Sales and Shipments
Last.fm Radio for Mobile Apps To Become Subscription-based Service
Earlier today music streaming service Last.fm announced that, starting February 15th, the radio functionality built into mobile apps (for iPhone and Android) and home entertainment systems will become a subscription-based service with a $3 monthly fee. The service is currently free in various countries but ad-supported; next week, Last.fm Radio for mobile will become ad-free and offer users the possibility to create personalized stations basing on their music preferences.
The service will, however, remain free in some countries and platforms:
Last.fm Radio will remain free on the Last.fm website in the US, UK and Germany and for the US and UK users of Xbox Live and Windows Mobile 7 phones. We’ll also continue to offer radio for free via the Last.fm desktop app.
The mobile music streaming landscape has become very competitive over the past months thanks to services like Spotify and MOG that provide access to large music libraries either for free or through a Premium subscription, like Spotify – which is still struggling to find its way in the U.S. market. And always in the United States, Rdio has recently revamped its website with lots of different features and social functionalities, many of them accessible from the companion iPhone app.
Last.fm Radio won’t provide users a choice to pick tracks on demand, but the offer is attractive if you’re a heavy Last.fm user who has built a music library over the years worth connecting to the Radio service.
2011 WWDC Rumored to be June 5 – 9
Setteb.it has done some investigating and it seems that if Apple follows previous trends from past WWDC’s, it would appear that the 2011 dates for WWDC would be June 5 - 9. The above image gives a rundown of booked events in the Moscone center in downtown San Francisco and the dates of June 5 - 9 are just labelled as a ‘Corporate Meeting’, as Apple has done so in past years.
WWDC, or the World Wide Developers Conference has been the place Apple has revealed it’s new iPhones (except the original) and major updates iOS updates. The keynote on June 5th would also be a really nice tie in for the launch of the iPhone 5! Last years WWDC was on June 7 - 11.
Update: AppleBitch spotted the rumored WWDC dates last week.
iPads to Enter Yet Another Parliament, This Time in Britain
The British House of Lords is set to soon allow it’s parliamentarians to use the iPad and other tablets, smartphones and e-readers, for a one year trial period. This embrace of the iPad is just the latest in a long line of examples where the iPad has gone beyond just a consumer entertainment device to one that is for students, Fortune 500 companies and politicians across the world.
The British parliamentarians will however be restricted to only accessing parliamentary documents and other clearly related files and websites to ensure that the devices do not detract from the key role of the House. This is undoubtedly a rule to try and avoid what happened last week in Italy when a member of their parliament, Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia was caught browsing certain escort agency websites on the iPad during a parliamentary sitting.
The Plaza Hotel Deploys iPads in Every Room
The five star The Plaza hotel in New York city has recently deployed iPads to every single one of it’s rooms and has a seriously cool iPad app running on them. The application allows the hotel visitors to do everything from turning lights on, changing the air conditioning, making restaurant reservations, ordering amenities and much more.
According to The Plaza’s general manager they had previously tried a similar system that was a touch panel but it “wasn’t sophisticated enough for what we wanted to do” and the iPad was chosen because “it is a great piece of equipment that is here to stay and won’t disappear tomorrow.”
Jump the break for a demo of the iPad app, made by Intelity, and its wide range of abilities.
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Best Buy Tag Suggests White iPhone Coming Within Weeks
It’s pretty clear at this point that the white iPhone 4 is launching in the next few weeks. Engadget just got a picture of a Best Buy tag spotted in Houston over the weekend, and it points at an AT&T white iPhone sold at $599 off contract.
This Best Buy tag adds speculation to several reports surfaced in the past weeks, such as production issues fixed by a new Japanese paint and the unit spotted on various international carrier websites.
The mythical white iPhone really seems to be coming now, indeed in Spring 2011.
“The Daily” Super Bowl Commercial [Video]
In case you missed it a few minutes ago, here’s the commercial News Corp. ran during the XLV Super Bowl to promote its iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. The ad is admittedly cool and nicely animated, too bad we’ve seen the app is nowhere near the fluidness from the video below. If The Daily was as fast and stable and snappy as the app from this ad, it would be perfect.
Nice commercial, but we’re still waiting for a better app. Read more
iTunes Launches Genius Recommendations For iPhone, Hide Your 80s Playlists
The best thing about iTunes mobile would have to be shopping for music on your iPhone or iPod touch: it’s so much easier to browse through all the latest tunes in the mobile store than through iTune’s feature heavy shopping experience. For those who rely or enjoy Apple’s Genius recommendations, it’s officially live on your iPod touch or iPhone: everything you bought on iTunes will help you find new movies to watch, music to listen to, and TV shows to check out. Simply visit the iTunes app on either device to check out the new feature: no download is required to experience the thrill of 80s one hit wonders populating the Genius brain box.
[via TUAW]
Hacker Brings FaceTime to iPad
In spite of the iPad lacking a camera (that should change very soon with the iPad 2), hackers have managed to port the FaceTime application for the iPod touch 4th gen to the tablet and make it work even without access to any kind of camera. The hack, called Intell, requires a pretty laborious installation process you can check out here, and involves changing permissions and values to a series of files inside the iPad’s filesystem.
The FaceTime app has been resized to scale nicely on the iPad’s larger screen, although it’s very clear that is an iPhone / iPod touch app running on a screen that’s not meant for it. The hack works from iPad to any other FaceTime device and, of course, iPhone users calling iPad owners will only receive audio. The app works over WiFi as required by FaceTime.
With the next-generation iPad coming in a few months with FaceTime capabilities it shouldn’t be so hard to wait for video calling on the tablet, but if you really want to try it now, follow the instructions and check out the demo video below. [via 9to5mac] Read more