When you’ve got 85,000 titles to choose from, having some way of cutting through the selection and finding the right app goes from being a luxury to a necessity, and so Apple have cranked up their “there’s an app for that” offensive with “Apps For Everything“. The new category system aims to further slice up the code-bloated App Store, introducing thirteen new sections.
It’s not all Microsoft’s Courier grabbing tablet headlines today; Apple’s touchscreen tablet is also making waves, with iLounge claiming to have more insider news on the upcoming device. According to their sources, there have been three separate prototypes of the device they’re calling the “iPad”, starting with a 7-inch display which was then junked for a larger, 10.7-inch capacitive touchscreen running at around 720p resolution.
Salt at the ready – and you’ll need a pretty big handful this time around – because according to the Boy Genius Reports’ tipster you’re looking at a “product mockup that may coincide with the launch of a revised Apple TV“. If you reckon it looks like a touchscreen remote control then you’re not alone.
The device – about which little is known – does show a Safari option, which has led to suggestions that it could be a WiFi tablet in its own right. Alternatively, if it really is a true companion device to the refreshed Apple TV, it could be a trigger to loading Safari on the mediaplayer, with the remote then working as a touchscreen keyboard and mouse pad to control browsing on your HDTV.
After Orange’s announcement yesterday that they would be offering the iPhone 3GS in the UK, now comes word that Vodafone will be the third carrier in the country to sell Apple’s smartphone. According to UK paper The Telegraph, the Vodafone iPhone 3GS is likely to be £100 cheaper ($159) after analysts predict a price war between carriers.
Update: Vodafone have confirmed the news; the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS will launch in the UK and Ireland in early 2010. [Thanks Dion!]
You guessed it, it’s a Tuesday and the Apple Store has been taken down for the usual hurried batch of updating. No word on what we might be seeing added today, but considering the past few weeks have hummed with talk of new iMac desktops and new MacBook entry-level notebooks there could be a pleasant surprise if you’re in the market for a new OS X machine.
Update: The store is back online (only the US site went down) and there are no changes we can see aside from to the cart system itself. Looks like this was just maintenance downtime, and we’ll have to wait a little longer for new iMacs and MacBooks.
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Apple have just announced that there have been an impressive two billion downloads from the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch. The breakthrough comes roughly two and a half months after Apple notched up the 1.5bn mark back in July, a year after the App Store opened its virtual doors for the first time. There are currently in excess of 85,000 applications on offer, with Apple boasting 125,000 developers in their iPhone Developer Program.
Apple have already been tipped as readying a new entry-level MacBook once this month, and now the second nod to the polycarbonate MacBook line has come, courtesy of AppleInsider. They’ve heard that the range refresh will likely be launched alongside the rumored new iMac desktops, themselves described as “imminent”, and be the Cupertino company’s “most affordable notebook offerings” to date.
Now, before someone feels obligated to tell us that this isn’t real and is merely an animation, we do realise that there’s no software in the App Store that can actually transform your iPhone 3GS into a dinky netbook. Still, our love of time-consuming fan renders and Transformer-style videos leaves us honor-bound to mention Manuel Eder’s marvellous video of Apple’s smartphone doing just that.
Video after the cut
UK would-be iPhone users desperate to avoid O2’s network can take heart in the fact that rival network Orange have just announced they will be offering the iPhone 3GS later this year. The Orange iPhone 3GS is yet to be priced, and nor have the company revealed the exact date it will go on sale, but there is a pre-interest page open for registrations.
Update: O2 statement after the cut
Following on from rumors earlier this month that Apple plan new iMac desktops, Apple Insider has heard that indeed the Cupertino company have already begun production of their new models. Apparently finalized in design early in September, the new iMacs are tipped to be cheaper but more compact than previous generation models, while other advances “not previously available” to buyers would now be on the table.
SlashGear Japan
