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Rumor: European Carriers Force Apple To Give Up On Integrated SIM Plans

According to a rumor that surfaced in October, Apple was looking for a way to develop an integrated iPhone SIM-card that would allow customers to easily subscribe to a carrier’s plan and easily switch between networks when travelling abroad. An integrated SIM-card would cut carriers out of an important process of the iPhone purchase system: retail.

With such as SIM-card, Apple, and only Apple, would sell iPhones while carriers would just play the role of “service providers”. Similar rumors surfaced last week, together with reports of concerns about this approach. Read more

iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak: Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 Available For Developers

A few hours ago the Dev Team pushed an update to jailbreak tool redsn0w, which nows allows developers (and tinkerers) to install custom bundles on iOS 4.2.1, even without having to install Cydia – which, as you may know, needs an update to work smoothly under iOS 4.2. The update to Cydia should go live soon after the release of iOS 4.2 and proper jailbreak tools for the new firmware.

The new version of redsn0w is a recommended download for developers who want to test their apps and tweaks under iOS 4.2, to ensure compatibility when the new OS will publicly come out. Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 will let you install bundles independent of Cydia; bundles can be up to 15MB in size. The Cydia app that’s included in this new version of Redsn0w is the same that was bundled with older versions, and won’t work on iOS 4.2.1 GM. Developers, however, can compile their own version of Cydia if they want.

Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 for OS X is available here.

News Corp’s iPad-only Newspaper, The Daily, A Collaboration Between Jobs and Murdoch?

Three days ago we reported News Corp, one of the world’s biggest media outlets, was working on a tablet-only publication Murdoch and his team were really excited about. In the past days more details have surfaced about the app, which should be launching in a few weeks in private beta mode and be publicly available soon after that.

It appears that Murdoch hired a staff of over 100 journalists to handle the publication, which has no print edition but will only be available in digital form-factor. The Daily, this is the name of the app as revealed by Murdoch himself in an interview with Fox Business, is one of News Corp’s “most exciting projects”. Basing on the information also posted by WWDMedia, the app will be a daily news report pushed directly to the iPad without the need of having a previous print subscription. Read more

AppShopper 1.3 Is The Best App Discovery Tool for iOS. Period.

There are dozens of apps in the App Store that promise to revolutionize the way you discover apps. Sort of meta, but this seems to be Silicon Valley’s latest dream: to simplify the way users find interesting apps they might like. Too bad basing the old App Store navigation system on poor Facebook and Twitter integration won’t make the process any simpler: indeed, it’ll just add an extra useless layer that most users will get tired of in a matter of minutes. Read more

Why The Mac Keeps Growing→

Why The Mac Keeps Growing

Horace Dediu on what changed in the PC market in the late 90’s and early 00’s:

In stepped the MacBook with good enough (and improving) office productivity. With excellent appeal along the dimensions of performance consumers demand most of all. It was priced higher than other laptops but the price points were affordable and, inflation-adjusted, lower than they’d ever been. It should not be a surprise that Apple was one of the first vendors to see its portables line become bigger than its desktop lines. The market evolved to the point where what Apple had was what the buyers needed.

Another disruption is going on right now, and we’ll see its deep cut in the market in a matter of a few years: it’s called iPad.

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iPad Launching Soon in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark

According to the Wall Street Journal, the iPad will launch relatively soon in several northern European countries, namely Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The launch could happen later this month or in December, right ahead of the holiday season. European carriers will offer 3G data packages for iPad customers and, also according to the Journal, carriers Tre, TeliaSonera AB and Tele2 AB announced on Friday iPad-specific subscriptions, although they declined to comment on prices and provide more details on the plans.

Five months after its release, Apple already sold 7.46 million units. With the iPad being sold in several retail chains in the U.S. and now approaching to even more European countries, it’ll be interesting to see what will happen in the Q1 2011 fiscal results.

Combo Steve Says T.J. Maxx Isn’t An Authorized Reseller, And He Won’t Match Their Price

I guess you heard that T.J. Maxx is having this unexpected sale of iPads (16GB, WiFi models) at $399 – $100 off the regular Apple price. No one knows where these iPads come from, no one knows why and how are they running this promotion. Steve Jobs, though, doesn’t approve at all.

While people are excited about this sale and are apparently struggling to find these discounted iPads at the nearest T.J. Maxx store, el Jobso shot a series of emails claiming that they are not an authorized reseller. As reported by 9to5mac, he also promised a curious Apple fan that there’s not even the smallest chance he’ll match the discounted of T.J. Maxx, for Ballmer’s sake. Read more

iTunes Connect Mobile App Updated with iPad Support, Retina Graphics, iBookstore Stats

iTunes Connect Mobile is an app for iOS developers that allows them to check on their Apple dev account to see detailed information about the apps currently on sale in the App Store. It’s basically a mobile extension of the Sales & Trends section in iTunes Connect. The app can display data via table or graph format and it comes with filters and menus to restrict a search to specific countries and periods of time.

The latest 1.1 update, released last night, introduces support for the iPad (the app has gone universal), Retina graphics, multitasking and support for iBookstore providers.

A must-have for iOS developers, available for free here. Also, developers: iTunes Connect won’t be available starting December 23rd through the 28th.

Some MobileMe Features Going Free with iOS 4.2?

When Apple released the first GM seed of iOS 4.2 to developers, we noticed that they implemented the possibility to create a free Apple ID inside the MobileMe settings page and even sign in to MobileMe using an Apple ID. The functionality wasn’t working back then and it still returns an error today, and we speculated Apple might be taking the necessary measures to open up MobileMe’s services to a wider audience already using an Apple ID. As noted by MacRumors last night, though, it looks like that was the first move to make MobileMe free to some iOS users, or at least some specific sections of MobileMe. Read more