Displaying items by tag: iTunes

With the upgrade to version v2 10.1 for iPhone, WhatsApp has implemented several major changes to their popular application. The most important change for users is certainly the one regarding the billing model. As posted on the official blog, instead of 99 cents users had to pay when downloading apps, iPhone users will have to pay 99 cents per year to be able to use the app.

Apple just will not give up in trying to get out of the pickle they are in over price fixing eBooks. Despite some pretty convincing evidence that Steve Jobs put together a new agency model with Apple at the head they are still claiming that Apple did nothing wrong. They are now trying to claim that the price of eBooks went down after their agreements with five publishers. They are also trying to throw the original publishers under the bus claiming they were already trying to hurt eBook sales long before Apple got involved.

Apple has no intention, at least not in the near future, to release a version of iTunes for the Modern UI  (Metro interface) of Windows 8. The information was confirmed in a CNN interview with Tami Reller, Microsoft CFO of Windows department, noting that the most popular applications from the iTunes store will be available for Windows 8 by the end of this year.

Apple was found guilty of infringing on the copyright of three Chinese authors by allowing their books to be purchased through iTunes. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court found that Apple should have known the books were protected under copyright and not posted them. This was even more true considering that one of the plaintiffs, Mai Jia has works that have been on the Best Seller lists in China.

AppGratis is an application that allows automatic retrieval of free applications on the AppStore and reportedly had 12 million users last year, and has earned areound $11 million to its owners. However, this will stop, because Apple removed it from the AppSotre due to alleged infringement of AppStore guidelines for applications. As the creators of AppGratis are French, on the occasion of this French Deputy Minister Fleur Pellerin decided to say something and argues that certain Internet companies are doing "constant bullying" and that she will ask the European Commission and member states to improve the regulation of digital platforms, search services and social networks .

According to the Financial Times, Google is reportedly negotiating with major music publishing companies regarding their services for streaming music. These services would supposedly be available at a subscription model or as a free service that would be financed through advertisements, similar to models from competing services such as Spotify and Deezer.

According to an announcement from Apple, the company has delayed the release of iTunes 11. The application will now be available in late November according to the Apple’s announcement. No official announcement on the reasons for the delay has been made but their spokesman said “The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right. We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November.”

According to Bloomberg, Google's application store (Google Play) has grown to over 700,000 titles. Hereby, Apple has lost the advantage according to the number of applications available for the platform, and is now tied with Google. The Android giant has certainly done some work to improve their numbers, like publishing guides for developers on how to develop the games specifically for Android, or just port them to it from other platforms.

Apple is preparing to compete head-to-head with Pandora and other companies that offer Internet radio services, sources have said. The time frame for this is the beginning of next year. Apple could close deals with major music labels by mid-November and after that they won’t need them much to launch their own streaming radio service. They will probably use a smart radio model like Pandora and avoid the expensive on-demand model that is used by Spotify. Ads will be also there (Apple’s iAds), but it is still unknown how revenues be split between the Apple and the music labels.

Who has the most apps? The best apps? Does Apple or Android make more money from their apps? Who has more developers? Which platform offers more free apps? Hardware aside, these are all all important issues to consider when purchasing a new phone. After all, phones are now a versatile mobile computing platform that can hardly be referred to as just a “phone” any longer.