MacRumors

Late last month, we noted that Apple's founding corporate papers were headed up for auction, with Sotheby's estimating that the documents would fetch in the range of $100,000-$150,000. The set of documents included the original three-page contract signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne, as well as several other documents related to withdrawal from the company just 12 days after it was founded.

According to the Sotheby's auction page for the documents, which are part of an ongoing sale of fine books and manuscripts, the lot sold for $1,594,500, considerably higher than the pre-auction estimates. That price includes a buyer's premium of 12% paid to Sotheby's.

The identity of the winning bidder has not been revealed, but the seller was identified last week as Wade Saadi, who purchased the documents from Ron Wayne in 1994 for "several thousand dollars".

Update: Sotheby's appears to have removed the final sales price from the auction listing for unknown reasons. Fortune reports that the winning bid came in via telephone at $1.35 million, although that figure apparently does not include the buyer's premium.

Update 2: As reported by the BBC, the winning bidder was Eduardo Cisneros, an executive whose Miami-based company owns stakes in a number of different companies.

In 2004, a developer by the name of Allan Odgaard released a new text-editor by the name of TextMate. Over the next few years, the application became extremely popular with coders because of a number of powerful features, including extensive customization, macros, and much more.

TextMate 2.0 was originally announced in 2006, and three years later Odgaard wrote in a blog post that he was still hard at work on TextMate 2 and it was 90 percent complete. He hoped that "an alpha version will be ready before too long, but I can’t make any promises about dates." Time passed, and Wired named TextMate 2 to it's year-end vaporware list in 2009, along with StarCraft II and the US release of Spotify.

TextMate 2.0 has finally been released to the public in the form of a public alpha -- typically the development milestone that precedes beta.

The excitement for a new version has been tremendous and today we’re finally able to repay the much appreciated loyalty and moral support from the community by releasing the first public alpha: TextMate 2.0 alpha (r8930).

It’s important to stress though that being an alpha release; it is not complete. It has reached a point where it may suit some early adopters and provide some relief to those who have been questioning TextMate’s future. For the time being, the alpha builds are only for people who already have a TextMate license and an Intel Mac.

Being a complete rewrite there are too many changes to sum up but here is an overview of notable changes since TextMate 1.5.10.

The TextMate 2.0 alpha is only for current TextMate license holders and will only work on Intel Macs.

TextMate is available for €39 (just over $50 at current exchange rates) from the MacroMates website.

Microsoft today took a major step onto the iOS gaming platform with the release of Kinectimals. The game, which is aimed at children and involves interacting with virtual animals, debuted last year as an Xbox 360 game taking advantage of the Kinect motion-sensing control system.

This irresistible mobile experience gives you the chance to use your phone to visit the island of Lemuria and play with, care for and fall in love with your very own cub. Bring your pet with you wherever you go! If you’ve already experienced Kinectimals on Kinect for Xbox 360, your phone becomes the key to unlocking five new cubs on your console.

The release marks an interesting move for Microsoft, which has an established gaming brand with the Xbox/Kinect line and has been thought to be looking to use that leverage to promote its own Windows Phone platform. But Microsoft has been making a significant push into iOS gaming tie-ins over the past week, beginning with the My Xbox LIVE profile management app and Halo Waypoint companion app for the popular gaming franchise.

Beyond those new offerings, today's addition of Kinectimals signals an even more substantial investment in iOS by Microsoft, which has now proven willing to branch out from its own platforms to support games running directly on iOS devices.

Kinectimals is a universal iOS application for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and is priced at $2.99 [App Store].

Late last month, Apple announced that it would be offering free standard shipping on all orders placed through the U.S. online store through December 22nd. Free shipping from the U.S. store typically requires a minimum $50 purchase, but Apple is waiving that minimum during the holiday shopping season.

With less than two weeks to go before Christmas, Apple has now bumped up that offer to include free 2-3 business day shipping, offering even faster deliveries for customers trying to complete their shopping. The standard shipping option previously included in the free shipping promotion can require up to five business days for delivery, with customers therefore waiting up to a week to receive their orders. But with the new upgraded free shipping, customers placing orders for in-stock items today can expect delivery on Thursday or Friday of this week.

Apple has also updated its holiday shipping info page to reflect the new 2-3 shipping option. The order deadline dates have not changed with the upgrade to 2-3 day free shipping, but customers should receive their shipment a bit faster.

For the majority of products, orders must be placed by December 19th in order to receive pre-Christmas delivery with the free shipping promotion. Select products do carry earlier deadlines though, with the deadline for customized Macs being tomorrow: December 14th. The deadline for iPhone 4S holiday orders has already passed, given the tight supplies that have resulted in 1-2 week shipping estimates for new orders.

For the last-minute shoppers, Apple does also offer next-day shipping on most items for an additional charge. Orders for most items (with the exception of customized Macs and engraved iPads and iPods) must be placed by December 21st with next-day shipping in order to receive pre-Christmas delivery.

Market research firm NPD today issued a press release discussing some of the trends in U.S. smartphone sales in 2011 compared to previous years, noting the strong growth in Android and iOS that has led the two platforms to now represent a commanding 80% of the market between them.

“The competitive landscape for smartphones, which has been reshaped by Apple and Google, has ultimately forced every major handset provider through a major transition,” said Ross Rubin, executive director, Connected Intelligence for The NPD Group. “For many of them, 2012 will be a critical year in assessing how effective their responses have been.”

The dramatic shift in the smartphone platform landscape is illustrated in a comparison chart (via BGR) showing how market shares have changed each year since 2006.

Back in 2006 before the launch of the iPhone, Research in Motion and Windows Mobile were neck-and-neck atop the smartphone market, with each taking 37% of sales. Palm held down third place with 17% of the market. Five years later, each of those platforms (or their successors) have seen their shares shrink dramatically as iOS and Android have grown substantially.

The past year has seen a continuation of the longer-term trend, with Android's market-leading share growing from 42% of the market to 53% and iOS growing from 21% to 29%. Third-place Research in Motion has experienced a remarkable collapse from its position atop the market just two years ago, falling from 44% in 2009 to 25% in 2010 and dropping again to just 10% so far in 2011.

As noted by TechCrunch, Calcalist (Hebrew) reports that Apple is considering purchasing an Israel-based company called Anobit for $400-$500 million.

Anobit is a fabless semiconductor company that specializes in flash storage. According to their website:

Anobit provides flash storage solutions for the Enterprise and Mobile markets. It's MSP™ (Memory Signal Processing) technology significantly improves the endurance, performance and cost of flash storage products and systems. Anobit's products are used by world leading flash manufacturers, consumer electronics vendors and storage system providers.

Calcalist reports that Apple already relies on Anobit's technology in the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. Apple's interest in the company is related to their ability increase the amount of flash memory storage in a device and improve long term reliability. A Storage-Switzerland article describes the company's MSP technology:

Essentially this means they can detect flash problems in flash cells when they're much older, allowing them to extend the usable life of MLC flash significantly longer than other manufacturers. The net of this ability is Anobit's flash products have much longer endurance than comparable products from other vendors. They claim commercial-grade MLC endurance comparable to that of SLC flash from other manufacturers. Theoretically, this would enable users to replace SLC flash with the more economical MLC products.

A $400-$500 million acquisition price would make Anobit one of Apple's largest acquisitions ever. Prior to that, you have to go back to 1997 when Apple paid $404 million to acquire NeXT, Inc, bringing Steve Jobs back to the company.

Flash memory has been a key component in Apple's products over the past decade. Apple has made strategic bets on Flash storage in the past by pre-purchasing large amounts to ensure a constant supply. Apple's reliance on Flash remains with the ongoing popularity of the iPhone and shift in notebooks to SSD.

Following closely after a previously-rumored launch date of December 8th, Apple has now turned on new iTunes Store music and movie content in 16 Latin American countries. The countries seeing the new iTunes Store content include: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.

In addition, Brazil appears to have gained the notable distinction of being the first country outside of the United States to offer iTunes Match. We received one report over the weekend from a user in the Netherlands who was able to activate iTunes Match, but that functionality appears to have been a very short-lived glitch.

MacMagazine.com.br has a running commentary [Google translation] documenting the situation as the various components of iTunes music and movie purchases and iTunes Match are going live in Brazil.

As had been rumored for the Brazilian iTunes Store, prices are currently in U.S. dollars, requiring users to fund their accounts with international credit cards. Pricing in local currencies for the Latin American countries is said to be coming at some point in the future, perhaps within six months.

Update: Apple has published a press release announcing the new additions.

Launching with a catalog of over 20 million songs, the iTunes Store in Brazil features local artists including Ivete Sangalo, Marisa Monte and the digital debut of Roberto Carlos’ catalog, available to purchase and download along with a wide range of international artists including the Beatles, Rihanna, Coldplay and thousands more. With most songs priced at 99 cents and most albums at $9.99, the iTunes Store in Brazil is the best way for iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.

Apple today released iTunes 10.5.2, an update bringing improvements to iTunes Match and fixes for an audio distortion issue experienced with certain CDs.

About iTunes 10.5.2

iTunes 10.5.2 includes several improvements for iTunes Match and fixes an audio distortion problem when playing or importing certain CDs.

The download is currently available via Apple's downloads page and the dedicated iTunes download page. It should begin rolling out to Software Update shortly. The full download weighs in at 102 MB for Mac, 66.13 MB for 32-bit Windows, and 68.01 MB for 64-bit Windows.

Apple launched iTunes Match in the United States with the release of iTunes 10.5.1 in mid-November.

One popular hobby of those interested in discovering hints of Apple's future iOS devices has been the examination of various configuration files in each beta and public version of iOS for new entries referring to future iOS devices.

While the references provide essentially no information on the new devices themselves, as they simply appear in the form of "iPhone4,1" for what ultimately became the iPhone 4S as one example, they are carefully watched as hints of what devices Apple is likely to be testing with the software and perhaps how many variations of an upcoming device there might be.

With today's release of iOS 5.1 beta 2, Apple has now taken steps to obscure that information, planting numerous fake references within configuration files typically examined for such evidence.

One file in particular, USBDeviceConfiguration.plist, had formerly listed about two dozen different device variants. As discovered by 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman, that list has now ballooned to well over 100 such entries as Apple has seeded it with dozens of new fake references to such future products as "iPad10,1", "iPhone11,3", "iPod11,1", and "AppleTV8,3".

The change is likely to make it more difficult to detect new additions, as the new entries will serve as placeholders until Apple quietly begins using the software on its latest devices under development.

Update: As noted by @chronic, the change does not shut out examination of the evidence entirely, as unaltered listings are still visible in other locations. Apple also apparently began adding the fake references in the first iOS 5.1 beta, but only with beta 2 did they make it into the closely-watched USBDeviceConfiguration.plist file.

As noted by The Next Web, Apple has posted a 360-degree panorama of its new Grand Central Terminal retail store on opening day, showing the large crowds and the new store in the context of the massive terminal building. The panorama supports gyroscope input on compatible iOS devices, allowing users to experience the panorama simply by rotating the device.

The panorama is accessible by visiting Apple's Grand Central retail store page and tapping on the "View More Photos" link on the featured store photo. The panorama is the final image in the gallery, and can be navigated by gyroscope on newer iPhone and iPad devices and by clicking/tapping and dragging on other devices.

The gyroscope-supported panorama is a new inclusion for Apple on its site, adding a new immersive experience for site visitors right from the mobile Safari browser.

Mobile Safari was updated to support gyroscope input late last year with iOS 4.2, and developers quickly began taking advantage of the new capabilities once they became publicly known. Occipital was among the first developers to integrate the functionality, using it in its popular 360 Panorama app to allow users to view panoramic photographs in the same way Apple has now done with its Grand Central panorama.

Apple has released iOS 5.1 Beta 2 to developers, with a build number of 9B5127c. The biggest change is the addition of a much-requested feature related to the management of photos in the Photo Stream:

NEW: Photos taken using iOS 5.1 can be deleted from Photo Stream on your device and will be removed automatically from Photo Stream on your other iOS 5.1 devices. Older photos can be manually deleted from your iOS 5.1 devices.

New versions of Xcode 4.3 and Apple TV software were also released. iOS 5.1 Beta 1 was seeded two weeks ago on November 28.

Market research firm Strategy Analytics today reported on the release of its new research report covering "connected TV players" such as the current Apple TV and Roku boxes. According to the report, Apple is predicted to reach sales of four million Apple TV units for 2011, leading the way in a rapidly-growing market with a 32% share.

“Apple is leading this nascent market, which it still considers a ‘hobby’.” says Jia Wu, Senior Analyst at the Connected Home Devices (CHD) service. “As Apple prepares for its expected launch of smart TVs in 2012, rival platforms must accelerate their development plans to keep Apple from running away with the connected TV business, as it has done in smartphones and digital music.”

The report also notes that Apple TV users tend to spend more money on TV shows and movies than users of other set-top connected TV players, with 30% of Apple TV owners reported have rented content compared to 20% of owners of other devices.

Overall, Strategy Analytics estimates that the market for connected TV players has doubled this year, reaching almost 12 million units on the momentum of considerably lower pricing compared to previous years. The current Apple TV debuted in September 2010 priced at just $99, substantially cheaper than the $229 price tag on the original hard drive-based Apple TV.

Apple has long considered the Apple TV to be a "hobby", but rumors are increasingly pointing to the debut of a connected television set from Apple as soon as late next year. Such a device would presumably integrate many of the aspects of the current Apple TV box such as iTunes Store access and streaming from iOS devices directly into the television set. Apple is also said to have been working on revolutionary Siri-powered voice input for interacting with the television.