Astonishing, really, when you think about it. The App Store isn’t even two years old yet. Nor is the iPhone software development kit. Before the SDK was released March 6, 2008, the only developers working with it were the handful of outfits Apple (AAPL) had partnered with while it was in beta.

So Apple is entitled to a bit of gloating. And gloat it did, in a press release celebrating the 100,000-app milestone this morning:

Apple Announces Over 100,000 Apps Now Available on the App Store

CUPERTINO, Calif., Nov. 4 — Apple® today announced that developers have created over 100,000 apps for the revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. iPhone® and iPod touch® customers in 77 countries can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. App Store users have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile. “With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers.”

“With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. “The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future.”

Apple continues to improve search and discovery with new features including Genius for Apps, App Store Essentials selections, sub category listings and more valuable customer reviews. With the recently introduced iTunes® 9, it’s also now easier than ever to organize and sync your apps right in iTunes and they will automatically appear on your iPhone or iPod touch with the same layout.

The release of iPhone OS 3.0 this summer made over 100 new features available to iPhone and iPod touch users including Cut, Copy and Paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; shake to shuffle; parental controls; automatic login at Wi-Fi hot spots and Push Notifications. These new features have been incredibly popular with customers and there have already been more than two billion Push Notifications sent to apps available from the App Store. Additionally, the recently introduced In App Purchase feature for free apps means leading developers will now be able to offer customers the choice of buying content, subscriptions and digital services from directly inside their apps.

[Image Credit:148apps.biz]

Essentially, Wi-Fi Direct turns supporting devices into access points, allowing them to connect to one another without joining a traditional network. They’ll support typical Wi-Fi ranges and the same data-transfer rates, which in the case of 802.11n is some 30 times faster than the three megabits per second for Bluetooth.

“Wi-Fi Direct represents a leap forward for our industry. Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn’t available,” Wi-Fi Alliance Executive Director Edgar Figueroa said in a statement. “The impact is that Wi-Fi will become even more pervasive and useful for consumers and across the enterprise.”

And Bluetooth inevitably less so. Especially since Wi-Fi Direct will be available as a software upgrade for existing Wi-Fi devices. Why wait around for high-speed Bluetooth, which itself will rely on Wi-Fi for high speed data transfers, when you can use Wi-Fi Direct for your personal area network?

Leave it to Steve Jobs to upstage his own products.

Rumored by some analysts to be a nonevent, Apple’s invitation-only music gathering today is already proving quite eventful. Audience members expecting Apple (AAPL) exec Phil Schiller to quarterback today’s proceedings were given a welcome surprise when CEO Steve Jobs took the stage in his first public appearance since his liver transplant surgery.

He was given a standing ovation.

So how does he look? Obviously, he’s still quite thin, but from where I sit–which is admittedly near the back of the hall–he appears healthy…but gaunt. And that Willy Wonka charisma of his is back in full force. Certainly, he looks reasonably good for someone who just underwent a liver transplant. And how long does it take to regain 60 pounds anyway? Job’s isn’t De Niro in Raging Bull….

Anyway, it’s great to see Jobs onstage again. He speaks quietly and it’s hard to tell if his voice is scratchy or if he’s just humbled by what he’s about to say: “As some of you know, five months ago I had a liver transplant. I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. I wouldn’t be here without such generosity, so I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to be organ donors. ..I’d like to take this moment to thank everyone in the Apple community for their support. Thanks as well to Tim Cook and everyone at Apple. They really ran the company very ably during that time. … So I’m vertical, back at Apple and loving every day of it….”

Jobs quickly moves on to the announcements of the day. First up: iPhone 3.1, which now offers a Bluetooth Voice control and Genius feature and supports ringtones sold via the iTunes Store for $1.29. 3.1 is available today as a free download.

Live from Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Event

• iPod Updates, Games, Nano Video Cameras
• iTunes 9, iTunes LP, Home Sharing, Genius Mixes
• Steve Jobs: “I’m Vertical, Back at Apple and Loving Every Day of It”
• Event Photos by Adam Tow

]]> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090909/live-from-apples-lets-rock-event-10-am-pdt/feed/ 0 http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090805/os-x-1058-kills-bugs-dead/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090805/os-x-1058-kills-bugs-dead/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:17:58 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=22882 Apple (AAPL) on Wednesday released OS X 10.5.8, the latest point release to Mac OS X Leopard, even as Amazon (AMZN) takes pre-orders for its next iteration, Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6).

10.5.8 is largely a maintenance update, though it does patch a number of security vulnerabilities (18 to be exact), some of them fairly old.

Among 10.5.8’s improvements:

• Upgrades Safari to version 4.0.2
• Improves the accuracy of full history search in Safari 4
• Resolves an issue in which certain resolutions might not appear in the Display pane in System Preferences.
• Dragging an Aperture image into Automator now invokes an Aperture action instead of incorrectly invoking an iPhoto action.
• Resolves an issue that could prevent importing of large photo and movie files from digital cameras.
• Improves overall Bluetooth reliability with external devices, USB webcams and printers.
• Addresses an issue that could cause extended startup times.
• Improves iCal reliability with MobileMe Sync and CalDav.
• Addresses data reliability issues with iDisk and MobileMe.
• Improves overall reliability with AFP.
• Improves overall reliability with Managed Client.
• Improves compatibility and reliability for joining AirPort networks.
• Improves Sync Service reliability.
• Includes additional RAW image support for several third-party cameras.
• Improves compatibility with some external USB hard drives.
• Includes latest security fixes.

]]> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090805/os-x-1058-kills-bugs-dead/feed/ 3 http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090330/the-island-of-doctor-moto/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090330/the-island-of-doctor-moto/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:02:08 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=15623 It looks to be some Moreauian chimera of iPhone and Pre, but Motorola’s new QA4 Evoke seems a far slicker handset than most we’ve seen from the company lately. Odd then that it’s to make its debut on a flat-rate carrier like Cricket. Given the rapid decline in Motorola’s share of the handset market, you’d think that the company would be doing its damndest to put it on the big carriers’ shelves. Perhaps the company’s gearing up for a slow launch. Or perhaps AT&T (T), Sprint (S) and Verizon (VZ) are too busy with their iPhones, Pres and Blackberrys to pay attention to Motorola’s (MOT) latest attempt to revive its flagging post-Razr cellphone business. Anyway, as far as handset features go, the Evoke boasts some decent ones: a 2.8-inch WQVGA display, quad-band CDMA connectivity (plus EVDO Rev A), stereo Bluetooth, true GPS, an accelerometer, a two-megapixel camera and a slide-out number pad that complements its virtual QWERTY keyboard. No word yet on price, but the device will begin selling in May, likely a month or so before Palm’s (PALM) Pre and the next-gen Apple (AAPL) iPhone cause everyone to forget it.

]]> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090330/the-island-of-doctor-moto/feed/ 1 http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090108/palm-without-me/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090108/palm-without-me/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:32:02 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=10998
[ See post to watch video ]

By all appearances, the Pre is a slick little device. But is it formidable enough to stand its ground next to Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry and the groaning board of Android devices currently in the handset market product pipeline? Palm (PALM) certainly seems to think so. In fact, the company is so confident in the Pre that CEO Ed Colligan seems to think it won’t need a sub-$200 price point to pull share from Apple (AAPL), et al. “Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product,” he asked ATD’s Peter Kafka earlier this afternoon.

Well, here’s one reason: To stay in business. Because despite Colligan’s claims of a “significantly better product,” Palm hasn’t raised the smartphone bar much (if at all) with the Pre. In fact, the device is as noteworthy for the features it may not include as for those it does. Absent from today’s grand unveiling was any mention of video. Also missing was a rival to Apple’s App Store and the robust developer-consumer ecosystem Apple has created around the iPhone and iPod touch. Even Google’s (GOOG) Android OS debuted with that. And the name; well, “Pre” isn’t likely to do very much for Palm’s already much diminished brand recognition.

Now, perhaps video and an app store are coming. But even if they do, will the Pre really be worth paying a premium for, as Colligan suggests? I’m not so sure–especially when the inevitable updates to the iPhone and BlackBerry remove the few advantages it does have over those devices. “Fast Web browsing” and “efficient multitasking” just aren’t big differentiators anymore.

That magnetized conductive charging platform sure is nice, though.

UPDATE: Turns out Palm is planning an App Store rival. According to the Pre press release, “The platform’s flexible environment will also allow developers to distribute their applications over-the-air via an on-device Palm application store.” And though no mention was made of video during Thursday’s Pre unveiling, the device will support it–both on the device and streaming. Said a Palm spokesperson, “The Pre has video playback, including YouTube video from the internet.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Yeah. Those PC Guys Never Stood a Chance, Palm.
• Palm: Spare Change for Financial Viability?
• Alms for Palm?
• Palm New-ness: A Target Price of Zero
• Palm: Hey … Hello? Excuse Me … Over Here!

Unless you simply kept it in beta for a few years like some of your other products. …

More specifically, they’re buying fewer Motorola (MOT) phones. The company saw its share of the handset market fall to 21 percent from 32 percent a year ago. And that 11 percent loss was the competition’s gain. “Quarterly unit-sales of handsets fell to their lowest level since NPD begin tracking the category in 2005,” Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD, said in a statement. “Even so, most major manufacturers picked up market share that was lost by Motorola.” And that’s left the market in a bit of a three-way tie. Samsung and LG each have 20 percent share to Motorola’s 21 percent. Bringing up the rear: Nokia (NOK) and RIM (RIM) with 9 percent and 7 percent respectively.

A few other data points worth noting: Consumers who actually bought handsets in the quarter paid an average of $84 for them. Of those handsets, 81 percent were Bluetooth-enabled, compared with 69 percent last year. And 65 percent were music-enabled, compared with only 45 percent last year. Finally, sales of handsets with a QWERTY keyboard rose to 28 percent from 12 percent. So while Americans may be purchasing few cellphones, the ones they are buying are more feature-rich and more expensive.

Sounds a little odd coming from a company that once prohibited the use of unlocked cellphones on its network and capped Bluetooth usage. But Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam says it’s so. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam told Business Week. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”

Or perhaps what Verizon might plan to do–like habituate the public to per-byte pricing. As Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer recently noted: “Verizon has no intention of turning itself into dumb pipe. You can expect service plans for non-Verizon phones to include data-network fees based on usage–meaning those ‘free’ calls could cost a bundle.”

Course, the least skeptical among us might say that openness just makes good business sense. “It gets them out ahead of regulators who might force open networks, but on less favorable terms,” analyst Avi Greengart told Wired. “If Google’s Android takes off, and Verizon gets Android on their network, it could also mean the company sees a whole host of new services. The hope is that there are going to be a whole new range of devices and apps that the carriers can’t really predict in their central planning, mass-market business models.”

But while Apple may have taken the “computer” out of its name, it definitely hasn’t taken the computer out of the company. According to market researcher IDC, sales of Apple machines rose to 1.76 million units during its third quarter of the year, up 33% from the same period a year ago.

And they’re sure to rise in the fourth quarter as well, thanks to a batch of new products the company debuted today. At an event at its corporate headquarters, Apple uncrated a sleek new aluminum-and-glass iMac desktop (with all-new Bluetooth 2.0 keyboard) and a faster Mac mini as well as significant upgrades to its iLife (revamped iMovie) and iWork (new spreadsheet program) software suites and .Mac service (10 GB of storage plus new photo-sharing features).

Interestingly, Apple’s selling its new iMacs at prices lower than those of their predecessors, and while those prices are still higher than those of low-end Windows PCs, the company says they compare favorably to more high-quality PCs. “Our goal is to make the best personal computers in the world and make products we are proud to sell and recommend to our family and friends,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at Apple’s event today. “We want to do that at the lowest prices we can. But there’s some stuff in our industry that we wouldn’t be proud to ship. And we just can’t do it. We can’t ship junk. There are thresholds we can’t cross because of who we are. And we think that there’s a very significant slice of the [market] that wants that, too. You’ll find that our products are not premium priced. You price out our competitors’ products, and add features that actually make them useful, and they’re the same or actually more expensive. We don’t offer stripped-down, lousy products.”