Report: Apple Stores Sold 8.8 iPads Per Hour on Black Friday

Everyone goes shopping on Black Friday (well, unless you prefer to check out online deals), and Apple Stores are no exception to this trend. With some pretty decent discounts set up for the day after Thanksgiving, we knew Apple was going to sell a whole bunch of iPads and new MacBook Airs on that day – but we may have the actual numbers here.

Fortune is reporting that, according to a report from Gene Munster’s team at Piper Jaffray, Apple sold approximately 8.8 iPad units per hour on Black Friday and 8.2 Mac units per hour. A rough estimate of 8.8 iPads sold per hour across 236 US stores in a 12 hours timeframe leads us to 25.000 iPads sold on Black Friday.

Most notable in our observations,” he writes, “we noticed that the iPad is gaining traction (driven by lower price vs. the Mac) among demographics in which the Mac has historically not been successful. The bottom line is that Apple’s addressable market is expanding with the iPad.

Munster also states the iPad is “becoming the Mac of the masses”. An interesting statement looking forward.

“Random” FaceTime Calls A Bug in Apple’s System?

According to several reports surfaced on iSpazio, fscklog and Apple’s discussion boards, hundreds of iPhone, iPod Touch and Mac users received random FaceTime calls from themselves or one of their contacts in Address Book on Saturday. Most specifically, it appears that a bug triggered these FaceTime calls to go out at 6:30 PM PST, 9:30 PM EST, 2:30 AM GMT and 3:30 AM GMT +1 on Saturday, November 27th (United States) and Sunday, November 28th (Europe).

Basing on the reports from iSpazio and Apple’s forums, it seems like these random and “fake” calls (not initiated by users, coming randomly from iPhone numbers and email addresses associated to FaceTime on iPod Touches and Macs) happened on devices running iOS 4.2.1 and iOS 4.1 (both regular and jailbroken devices). FaceTime for Mac, on the other hand, is currently in beta and available for download on Apple’s website.  Read more

Hacked Apple TV Plays HTML5 Video via Web Browser

Of all the cool mods and hacks for Apple TV 2nd gen and AirPlay we’ve been covering in the past weeks, this one’s for Cupertino’s little black box has to be the most promising one.

Two weeks ago a video of aTV Flash, developed by Fire Core, made the rounds as it appeared like full-featured web browsing with Last.fm integration was coming to jailbroken Apple TVs. Development on the suite has been proceeding steadily, and a few days ago a new video of the tweak in action surfaced showing support for HTML5 video inside Fire Core’s browser – all played smoothly by the Apple TV.

As wrote by the developers, some parts of the app like Last.fm integration and the installer are ready for beta, but the release of iOS 4.1 for Apple TV and support for additional video codecs are turning out to be more difficult tasks to accomplish. In the meantime, check out the demo video below, and get ready for aTV Flash to make your Apple TV a lot more useful in the upcoming weeks. [via 9to5Mac] Read more

Apple Posts Cyber Monday Deals In The U.S. Store

As expected, a few hours ago Apple posted the official Cyber Monday deals in the U.S. Apple online store. The offers are not available in the UK store or other international store.apple.com.

The Cyber Monday deals allow you to save some good bucks on a variety of Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod accessories, like headphones, speaker docks, cases, bangs and stands. The sale, for example, includes the popular TwelveSouth Compass Stand for iPad and the Beats by Dr. Dre Beatbox. You can find discounts from $5 to $40.

The Cyber Monday sale is available here.

“Apple Has A Spectacular Year”→

“Apple Has A Spectacular Year”

Never before has this venerable company, which at age 34 is a grizzled veteran by Silicon Valley standards, stood so firmly atop the high-tech industry. Earlier this year, Apple’s market capitalization surpassed that of Microsoft, making it the most valuable property in the tech universe. And during its just-completed fiscal year, it broke four consecutive quarterly revenue and profit records. Amid the worst recession in decades, Apple hired thousands while others cut jobs.

The key point:

Apple’s innovation is not only relentless but also ruthless. No company is more willing to kill its own babies. Rather than wait for competitors to draw the knife, co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs does the deed himself.

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Pull To Refresh for Mail Is A Dream Come True | Cydia

Since Loren Brichter first implemented the popular “pull to refresh” functionality in Tweetie 2 for iPhone, lots of other developers were inspired by him to do the same in their apps. Hundreds of other Twitter clients can do “pull to refresh”. Even the official Facebook app has pull to refresh. Now Apple’s Mail app for iPhone can, too. Read more