MacRumors

The BBC's iPlayer for iPhone has arrived in the United Kingdom with 3G streaming of live BBC TV and radio. In a blog post announcing the app, the BBC noted that 1.5 million users have installed the iPlayer for iPad app, and 16.5 million programs were watched on mobile devices, up 129% year-over-year. With the new iPhone and iPod Touch app, that number should continue to aggressively increase.

The UK version of iPlayer allows domestic viewers to view live BBC TV and radio and watch catch-up TV over Wi-Fi and 3G.

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The BBC iPlayer app for the iPhone and iPod touch puts all of the BBC’s national television channels and radio networks in your pocket. You can now watch live television channels and listen to live radio stations wherever you are.

We have developed a neat live channel switcher so you can easily flick between channels just like on your TV or radio. If you want to see what else is on right now just tap on the ‘Live Channels’ button while you watch. So, if I’m watching BBC One on my phone and want to see what’s on BBC Two, I just tap on ‘Live Channels’ to switch over. It’s an easy way to see what’s on now and flip over.

The app is compatible with Apple AirPlay. If you are running iOS 5, you can connect your iPhone or iPod touch to Apple TV and watch your favourite programme on your television.

You can listen to any of the BBC’s national radio stations in the app. To make this easier, we have enabled background audio so you can do other things on your phone, like check mail or surf the web, while listening to your favourite BBC radio station.

The 3G streaming works on the iPhone 3GS or newer as well as 3G-capable iPads. The app uses extensive adaptive bitrate technologies to adjust streaming speeds depending on signal strength, and the BBC's tech team has worked closely with UK carriers to optimize the experience for users.

BBC iPlayer is a universal app for iPhone and iPad, free on the App Store for United Kingdom users only. [Direct Link]

The BBC global iPlayer app, which was updated last week, is available in most of Western Europe and Canada -- and is coming to the United States. The app doesn't have the Live-TV, DVR and TV catch-up features that the British version does -- instead, it's a video-on-demand subscription service that gives access to selected portions of the BBC archive.

Last week, we noted that Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs had become Amazon's top-selling book of 2011, a feat all the more notable due to the fact that the book was not released until late October.

But that ranking only encompassed print sales, and with digital books now representing a majority of book sales at Amazon, rankings including Kindle e-book sales need to be included in order to generate a more complete picture of overall book sales.

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Amazon has done just that today, releasing its list of best-selling books of 2011, and Isaacson's Steve Jobs once again topped the list.

“After the year of recommending books to our customers, it’s always fun to see what books really resonated with them,” said Chris Schluep, Senior Editor of Books, Amazon.com. “We chose ‘Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats. And we’re really excited that Kindle Direct Publishing authors have taken two of the top spots this year for book sales overall.”

The top 10 best-selling books overall are:

1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
2. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey
3. “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard
4. “The Mill River Recluse” by Darcie Chan
5. “In the Garden of the Beasts” by Erik Larson
6. “A Dance with Dragons” by George R.R. Martin
7. “The Paris Wife” by Paula McLain
8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham
9. “The Abbey” by Chris Culver
10. “Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle)” by Christopher Paolini

Amazon's list includes all books that were published as first editions in 2011 and includes only paid sales. Highlighting the growing influence of digital books and their impact on publishing, Amazon notes that both The Mill River Recluse (#4) and The Abbey (#9) are independently-published books made available only via Kindle e-book.

drivers license app
The Coalition for a Secure Driver's License today announced that U.S. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has sent a letter to Apple requesting the removal of a free app that allows users to easily create digital fake IDs from the App Store.

The "License" application by DriversEd.com for Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad allows users to electronically insert any digital photo and the biographic information of their choosing into a template for a driver's license of a state of their choosing. The "License" application contains templates for driver's licenses for all 50 states, many of which are of designs that will be valid for the next several years. The user is then able to send the high quality digital image of the completed template to an email account. From the email attachment, the image can then be printed and laminated, creating a high quality counterfeit driver's license difficult to discern from one that's genuine.

Casey reportedly noted in his letter that the ease with which the app allows counterfeit licenses to be produced poses significant risks related to identity theft, underage alcohol and tobacco purchases, and national security.

In his letter, Senator Casey stated that, "I believe this application poses a threat to public safety and national security…it can be used in a way that allows criminals to create a new identity, steal someone else's identity, or permit underage youth to purchase alcohol or tobacco illegally. National security systems depend on the trustworthiness of driver's licenses, yet with a counterfeit license created by the app, a terrorist could bypass identity verification by the Transportation Security Administration, or even apply for a passport."

While the app had been available in the App Store for over two years, it appears that Apple has now quickly responded to Casey's letter by removing the app from the App Store. The Coalition for a Secure Driver's License had sent a letter to Apple's Scott Forstall back in April, requesting removal of the application. Apple apparently did not, however, respond to that initial request.

This is not the first time that elected government officials have gotten involved in disputes over App Store applications. Earlier this year, a group of four U.S. senators sent letters to Apple, Google, and Research in Motion requesting removal of several apps that alert users to the locations of sobriety testing checkpoints. Apple took its time responding to the issue, which is considered controversial as some law enforcement agencies support public notification of the locations of such checkpoints. Ultimately, Apple updated its review guidelines to prohibit the use of DUI checkpoint location information except in cases where the information has been made publicly available by law enforcement.

mac app store icon 150Apple today announced that its Mac App Store has surpassed 100 million downloads in less than one year of availability.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

The press release also offers promotional comments from representatives of Autodesk, Pixelmator, and algoriddim highlighting the value of the platform for app distribution on the Mac platform.

The Mac App Store's pace pales in comparison to that of the App Store for iOS, which easily surpassed 100 million downloads in less than three months of availability back in 2008. But with a smaller user base, a smaller library of applications, more expensive average pricing, and the fact that the Mac App Store is not an exclusive official distribution platform for OS X, it is unsurprising that the Mac App Store has grown more slowly than its iOS counterpart.

Apple has worked hard to shift Mac application distribution to the Mac App Store, moving most of its own software, including OS X Lion, to the store and in many cases also discontinuing or severely limiting availability of boxed versions of its software. The Mac App Store is also gaining traction with even the largest developers of Mac App Store, and while flagship products such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop are not yet available through the store, Adobe does offer several applications including Photoshop Elements via the store. Microsoft is also said to be "actively working" to bring Office to the Mac App Store.

Update: Apple provided some additional information on the milestone to The Loop, noting that the number does not include purchases of OS X Lion, updates to previously-downloaded apps, or repeat downloads from a single user installing apps on multiple computers.

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DigiTimes reports that Apple's next generation iPad will become available in about 3-4 months. The publication's supply chain sources indicate that the next generation iPad parts are starting to ramp up while the iPad 2 production is starting to decline.

OEM production of iPad 2 will remain high at 14-15 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 but decline to 4-5 million units in the first quarter of 2012, paving the way for the launch of the new iPads, the sources noted.

Volume production is expected to start in February and reach 9.5-9.8 million units in the first quarter of 2012.

March or April should come as no surprise to regular Apple followers. While Apple first announced the original iPad in Jan 2010, the company didn't start shipping the first units to customers until April. In 2011, the iPad 2 was announced around the same time of year.

The iPad 3 is widely expected to carry a high resolution "Retina" display.

ihomeJapanese blog Mac Otakara (via AppleInsider) reports that Apple held a MFI Conference conference in Shenzhen, China this past week. "MFI" is Apple's Made for iPod / iPhone / iPad certification program for accessory manufacturers.

During the talk, Apple reportedly revealed that they were going to provide a new certification chip for their MFI program to encourage more iOS-compatible accessories. The new chip will allow access to iOS devices over AirPlay, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. While Macotakara does not specify how this differs from the current program, the current program seems to be limited to physical dock accessories and specific AirPlay vendors.

In fact, TouchArcade recently touched on this fact in a recent article on iOS gaming accessories. TouchArcade noted that the reason why all the current gaming accessories such as the ThinkGeek iCade relies on Bluetooth keyboard emulation is due to the restrictions Apple has placed over bluetooth connections. It seems that this restriction will be loosened with the new certification chip, though details are sparse at the moment. TouchArcade suggests this could open the way to low-latency analog control sticks for iOS gaming.

Apple was also promoting the use of the new version of Low Energy Bluetooth 4.0 which was added in the iPhone 4S, noting that it could be used to support new applications in health care and gaming markets. We profiled the possibilities for Bluetooth Low Energy back in July.

Finally, Apple reportedly revealed that they would be adding support for AirPlay over Bluetooth, though it's not entirely clear what advantages this will offer.

Update: We've received some additional clarification on Apple's MFI program and the conference presentation, with the source noting that the new chip does not bring with it any additional capabilities. The chip, which has already been available for some time, is simply an authorization chip to verify compliance with the MFI program. The new chip is said to be faster and smaller and require less power than its predecessor, but does not confer any other functionality for devices.

radioshack dec2011 iphone sale1
RadioShack today informed MacRumors that it will be launching a $30 discount program for AT&T iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 models on Sunday, bringing pricing down to $69.99/$169.99/$269.99/$369.99 after the instant savings. The sale will run through Saturday, December 17th.

In addition, trade-in credits of up to $200 for customers' used iPhones can bring the price down even further and in some cases leave users with additional store credit to spend.

Starting Sunday, Dec. 11, customers in the market for AT&T’s iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S can get a great deal when they take advantage of RadioShack’s $30 instant savings paired with the company’s Trade & Save program, which will guarantee $100 to as much as $200 off when they trade in their eligible iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4. Furthermore, those who need a little more memory and wish to purchase an iPhone 4S (32/64GB) may pay as little as $69.99 for the iconic device with a qualifying 2-year plan/data pack and eligible trade-in.

As usual, the prices require a 2-year contract, activation fee and potential early termination fees related to existing contracts. The maximum $200 trade-in is awarded for fully-functional, "cosmetically excellent" iPhone 4 units in 16 GB and 32 GB capacities when the charger is included with the trade-in.

RadioShack also offers AppleCare+ as an optional add-on at the time of purchase.

Related Forum: iPhone

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Firemint has dropped the price of their critically acclaimed Flight Control game to Free for the first time ever. The game is part of a daily promo from EA, and will only be free for one day. Flight Control was one of the first "classic" iPhone games that first pioneered the line-drawing game mechanic. The early Flight Control game video shows how its played:


Firemint followed up with an iPad version called Flight Control HD and just recently released an update to the game that added new levels and a 'rewind' feature that can be purchased in-app.

The game is a must have for anyone with an iOS device, and it's a great time to get it while it's free.

App Store Links: Flight Control, Flight Control HD (for iPad)


Apple has posted a new TV ad on their YouTube page promoting The Beatles on iTunes. The ad is called "Covers" and shows off many of different album covers from The Beatles in an animated fashion. The ad ends with "The Beatles on iTunes".

The Beatles first appeared on the iTunes store back in November 2010. The new TV ad seems part of another promotion announced earlier today of a free animated version of the band's Yellow Submarine book as an exclusive on Apple's iBookstore.

peter oppenheimerWith Apple still searching for a new head of retail operations in the wake of Ron Johnson's departure to become CEO of department store chain J.C. Penney, 9 to 5 Mac claims that Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer is overseeing the division on an interim basis.

Oppenheimer, a financial guru has been put in charge of Apple’s retail operations according to sources familiar with the search for Ron Johnson’s successor. Oppenheimer is obviously an interim leader with a lack of retail experience, but his executive leadership experience is enough to give orders to his new troops: [Jerry] McDougal, [Bob] Bridger, and [Steve] Cano – who have immense retail experience. Oppenheimer won’t stay retail chief forever, and is simply holding the spot until the new Senior Vice President of Retail is selected. Oppenheimer’s title at Apple has not changed from Senior Vice President and CFO, he has just gained the new responsibility of the Apple retail division for the time being.

A report from last month claimed that Steve Cano had been selected to assume Johnson's former role as head of retail. Apple quickly denied the report, however, noting that the search for Johnson's successor was still ongoing.

Oppenheimer has been at Apple since 1996, and took the reins as Chief Financial Officer in 2004.

Today's grand opening of the company's new Grand Central Terminal store is the first major store opening since Johnson's departure as of November 1st. Obviously the store's development was nearly complete by the time Johnson left the company, and there are a number of key executives within Apple's retail division keeping things running, but it appears that Apple has turned to Oppenheimer's expertise in financial issues to steady things until a new retail chief can be brought on board.

Apple has made a few changes to its leadership team since Tim Cook became CEO in late August, with Johnson's departure being the most significant move remaining unsettled. In another change, Eddy Cue was elevated to the senior vice president level as his role has expanded to oversee the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, iCloud, and iAd. The company is also looking to fill vacancies in other executive positions at slightly lower rungs, including head of government sales Ron Police, who has reportedly left the company.

webos banner
HP today announced that it will be open sourcing its webOS mobile operating system acquired when it purchased Palm last year. The fate of webOS has been unclear since the company's August announcement that it would be spinning off its PC division and exiting the tablet and smartphone markets. HP later reversed course on its planned PC unit spinoff, but has continued to weigh its options for webOS amid the discontinuation of its mobile hardware effort.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.

As ZDNet notes, the open sourcing of webOS adds a competitor for Android, offering hardware manufacturers wary of relying too much on Google's open source platform an option to diversify their own slates of products.

Android is the king of mobile as well as open source operating systems. However, carriers and smartphone makers want to diversify away from Android as well as Apple’s iOS. WebOS could be a nice diversification tool that could splinter Android support. The other reality: The WebOS UI is better than Android’s, but Google’s platform has the apps.

The availability of webOS for use by numerous manufacturers could also threaten Microsoft and its efforts to make Windows Phone competitive by partnering with Nokia.

Update: In an interview with The Verge, HP CEO Meg Whitman reveals that the company is planning to use webOS on future tablet products, indicating the company is not abandoning mobile hardware entirely. No timeframe for such products has been announced.

Will HP be creating any new webOS hardware?

Meg: The answer to that is yes but what I can't tell you is whether that will be in 2012 or not. But we will use webOS in new hardware, but it's just going to take us a little longer to reorganize the team in a quite different direction than we've been taking it in the past.

Are we talking printers? Or tablets and phones?

Meg: In the near term what I would imagine — and this could change, in full disclosure — is I would think tablets, I do not believe we will be in the smartphone business again.

On Nom, the candy-munching critter from ZeptoLab's best-selling Cut The Rope games, has become something of a cultural icon. Now, he's made the transition from video games to the real world in this animated video. Jumping out of the iPad to look for more candy, Om Nom runs into a feisty housecat who thinks he would be a tasty snack:


With the holiday season coming up, free Cut The Rope's Holiday Gift edition received a new update recently that added a photo greeting card maker to its candy-eating repertoire.

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Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift is a universal app for iPhone and iPad, available free on the App Store [Direct Link].

yellow submarine itunes email
The Beatles today announced the debut of a free animated version of the band's Yellow Submarine book as an exclusive on Apple's iBookstore. Apple is also prominently promoting the release on the main iBookstore page within iTunes and in emails to iTunes users, showing off some of the capabilities of iBooks on the company's mobile devices.

The iBookstore's exclusive 'Yellow Submarine' book takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic, music-filled journey with The Beatles to an underwater dreamland featuring animated illustrations and text from the 2004 book, 14 full-color video clips from the original 1968 film, audio clips of classic Beatles hits and Sir George Martin's original score, original dialogue from the film, "read aloud" functionality to follow along as actor Dean Lennox Kelly narrates, as well as interactive features that let you tap the story's wild array of butterflies, starfish and sea monsters to make them come alive. A video trailer for the book is available for free streaming starting today at www.iTunes.com/TheBeatles.

The press release notes that the book release is in celebration of one year of availability for The Beatles on the iTunes Store. The Beatles have sold over 10 million songs and 1.8 million albums through iTunes since their November 2010 debut.

Apple is also leveraging the Yellow Submarine release to promote its new iBooks 1.5 release, which earlier this week added a night-time reading mode, full-screen mode, and new fonts.

yellow submarine trailer music
Yellow Submarine [iTunes Store] is a free 317.5 MB download through the iBookstore. A trailer for the book and a link to purchase the music from the book are available on the main iTunes page for The Beatles [iTunes Store].

As noted by AppleInsider, shipping estimates for build-to-order iMac models equipped with 2 TB hard drives have improved to 2-4 weeks, after previously being as long as 5-7 weeks earlier this month. It appears that hard drive shortages caused by massive flooding in Thailand over the past several months may be improving.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about the potential impact of the Thailand flooding on Apple's business during the company's October earnings conference call. Cook noted that there would undoubtedly be an industry-wide shortage of hard disk drives that would primarily affect Apple in its Mac business, but that there had yet to be a full assessment of the impact or an estimated timeline for recovery. He also declined to offer any specific information on the expected impact to Apple, noting only that any such impact was figured into the company's blockbuster revenue guidance of $37 billion for the holiday quarter.

refurbished ipad 2 419
Apple today dropped prices on its refurbished iPad 2 models, cutting $30 off of 16 GB models and $50 off of 32 GB and 64 GB models. Pricing is now as follows:

- 16 GB Wi-Fi: $419, down from $449. Pricing for brand-new is $499.
- 32 GB Wi-Fi: $499, down from $549. Pricing for brand-new is $599.
- 64 GB Wi-Fi: $599, down from $649. Pricing for brand-new is $699.

- 16 GB Wi-Fi+3G: $549, down from $579. Pricing for brand-new is $629.
- 32 GB Wi-Fi+3G: $629, down from $679. Pricing for brand-new is $729.
- 64 GB Wi-Fi+3G: $729, down from $779. Pricing for brand-new is $829.

Apple first began offering refurbished iPad 2 units in late August. The company also continues to offer refurbished original iPad models on a limited basis. Current availability on the original iPad is limited to the 32 GB Wi-Fi ($399) and 64 GB Wi-Fi ($499) models.

Related Roundup: iPad
Buyer's Guide: iPad (Caution)
Related Forum: iPad

grand central store crowd
Following Wednesday's media preview event, Apple's massive new retail store in Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal opened to the public today at 10:00 AM. As noted by Fortune, the main concourse of the terminal was filled with hundreds of people waiting for the store to open as hundreds more red-shirted Apple employees prepared to welcome them.


As is traditional for Apple retail store openings, the company is handing out store-specific T-shirts to early visitors. Fortune notes that Apple has prepared to hand out 4,000 T-shirts for today's opening.

While much has been made of Apple's strong iPhone sales this quarter with estimates now pushing toward 30 million units, what hasn't been known is the mix of iPhone models contributing to that number. The significant majority of sales are almost certainly from the current iPhone 4S, but the company continues to offer lower-end 8 GB iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS models in some markets. Higher-capacity iPhone 4 models are also available in countries where the iPhone 4S has yet to launch.

Ahead of the iPhone 4S debut, the iPhone 3GS was continuing to sell well under the shadow of the iPhone 4 in the United States, suggesting that there is indeed a significant market for these lower-end devices.

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A new report from Digitimes now puts some production numbers on these low-end models for the current quarter, claiming that Apple's manufacturing partners are pushing out two million units of the iPhone 3GS this quarter. In addition, Apple is said to be producing 800,000-1 million CDMA iPhone 4 units.

Apple has been increasing its penetration into entry-level smartphone markets and the OEM production of iPhone 3GS has continued steadily with the volume likely to reach two million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 1.4-1.6 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to industry sources.

...

Meanwhile, the production of the CDMA version of iPhone 4 is expected to top 800,000 to one million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 500,000-600,000 units in the following quarter, estimated the sources.

Unaddressed is the GSM iPhone 4, which is undoubtedly being produced at an even higher rate given the worldwide market for the device. And despite Apple's rapid international rollout of the iPhone 4S, a number of countries are still yet to see the device and are thus still selling the GSM iPhone 4 as the most current model.

Related Forum: iPhone

FOSS Patents reports that Motorola Mobility has won an initial ruling in Germany that could allow the company to bar Apple from selling the iPhone and 3G-capable iPad models throughout the European Union. The court found that Apple's products violate a patent related to the GPRS data service used over cellular networks.

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Interestingly, the patent in question is one that Apple had argued was essential to the GPRS standard, making Motorola required to license the technology under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms. The patent has indeed been declared essential to the standard, but the court ruled in Motorola's favor in part because Apple did not satisfy the requirements for making a binding offer to license the patent in question.

Essentially, they can't just hold a FRAND defense against a patent holder who's suing them. Instead, they have to proactively make efforts to procure a license on FRAND terms by making an irrevocable, binding offer to the patent holder and by posting a bond for ongoing royalties.

Only if the FRAND patent holder denies a license despite having such an offer on the table, the defendant can claim that an injunction would result in a violation of competition law and, as a result, should not be granted.

The suit officially names all iPhone models with the exception of the iPhone 4S, which was released after the case was initiated. The ruling would, however, still apply to the iPhone 4S given that the ruling generally covers all devices that implement the invention. 3G models of the original iPad and iPad 2 are also specifically named as infringing products.

In its ruling, the court ordered Motorola to post a $134 million bond should it wish to enforce the preliminary injunction against Apple, a sum that would be used to reimburse Apple should the injunction be overturned on appeal. Apple will obviously be appealing the ruling, and will also be requesting a stay to prevent the injunction from being enforced while the appeals process takes place.

Barring a successful appeal, Apple's options are to either obtain a license from Motorola for the patent in question or to engineer around the patent. But given that the patent's technology has been declared essential to the GPRS standard, the latter option may not be possible.

Update: Motorola Mobility has issued a press release announcing the victory.

“We are pleased with the court’s ruling. Today’s decision validates Motorola Mobility’s efforts to enforce its patents against Apple’s infringement,” said Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel of Motorola Mobility. “Motorola Mobility has worked hard over the years to build an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio that is respected by the telecommunications industry, and we are proud to leverage this portfolio to create differentiated innovations that enhance the user experience. We will continue to take all necessary steps to protect our intellectual property, as the Company’s patent portfolio and licensing agreements with companies both in the U.S. and around the world are critical to our business. We have been negotiating with Apple and offering them reasonable licensing terms and conditions since 2007, and will continue our efforts to resolve our global patent dispute as soon as practicable.”

Update 2: Apple has provided an official statement to AllThingsD noting that it will appeal the decision and that any potential injunction would not affect Apple's sales before the holidays.

“We’re going to appeal the court’s ruling right away,” an Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD. “Holiday shoppers in Germany should have no problem finding the iPad or iPhone they want.”