Apple has begun extending song previews in the iTunes Store to 90 seconds on select songs in the U.S. store.

SOURCE appleinsider.com

More than 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs were sold on iTunes worldwide in the first week.
Of that tally, U.S. album sales totaled 119,000 units, which included 13,000 digital box sets, while individual digital track sales reached 1.4 million. Each digital box set included 13 studio albums, the two-volume “Past Masters” compilation and the “Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964” concert film. Sources say the U.S. album sales tally of 119,000 counts each box set as one unit, while Apple’s worldwide album sales tally counts each box set as multiple sales units, although it wasn’t immediately clear how many units each box set accounted for.

SOURCE billboard.biz

AirPlay is a terrific addition to iOS 4.2 that lets you beam video from iPod and YouTube apps to the Apple TV… and that’s it. Tragically, it is crippled and provides audio-only for every other app. Watch the video for the glory of what works and the gory details of what doesn’t.

SOURCE theiphoneblog

iOS 4.2, the latest version of Apple’s mobile platform, is now available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

This version is especially important for iPad owners, as it brings over 100 new features, most interesting among them being support for multitasking and folders. AirPlay, AirPrint and Find My iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch are also here.

Apple also said that iOS has 125 million users around the world, while its App Store now has more than 300,000 apps, 40,000 of them being native iPad applications.

See the full list of improvements in iOS 4.2 here.

The iPhone 4 will feature a 5 megapixel camera with a backside-illuminated sensor. The camera camera is capable to shoot movies in HD quality 720p resolution up to 30 frames per second with audio, and the LED flash can be used to light video as well. It has a 3.5-inch display diagonal (640×960) and Apple actually calls the new screen Retina Display, because it shows 326 pixels per inch, while the human eye can only distinguish around 300 ppi.

HTC HD7 is a high-end Windows Phone 7 device powered by 1GHz processor. It also features a 4.3-inch capacitive touch display, 5MP camera with flash, Wi-Fi and A-GPS.

SOURCE PhoneArena

Apple’s mobile advertising platform iAd is coming to the UK and France in December, as well as Germany in January, the company has announced. Since its US launch in July, iAd has emerged as a powerful new way for advertisers to reach millions of iPhone and iPod touch users right in their favorite apps, while providing a significant new revenue stream for developers.
iAd will launch in Europe with iAds from L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, Unilever, Citi, Evian, LG Display, AB InBev, Turkish Airlines and Absolute Radio

iAd is one of the crucial features of iOS 4.0, bringing HTML5-powered interactive ads to Apple’s mobile platform, letting users stay within their current application while engaging with an ad.

SOURCE apple.com

The Beatles have finally landed in iTunes. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison’s families have agreed to sell The Beatles’ back catalog on the music service after years of wrangling with Apple.

With 256 songs, documentaries, and other videos, it costs $150, which must be the priciest purchase on iTunes. Other albums, including Help!, Abbey Road, and my favorite the Magical Mystery Tour, cost $12.99, with the songs available for individual purchase at $1.29 each.

SOURCE gizmodo.com

BlackBerry PlayBook:

• 7-inch LCD, 1024 x 600, capacitive touch screen
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Measures 130mm x 193mm x 10mm

Apple iPad:

• 9.7-inch LCD, 1024 x 768, capacitive touch screen
• 1 GHz processor
• 256 MB RAM
• Video playback: up to 720p, 30 fps, H.264, MPEG-4, .mov
• Audio playback: MP3, HE-AAC, AAC
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Measures 189.7mm x 242.8mm x 13.4mm

SOURCE BlackBerry

This clip presents the new BMW connectivity accessories for Apple iPad and iPhone.

In Q3 2010, the worldwide smart phone market grew an impressive 95% over the same quarter a year ago to 80.9 million shipped units. Nokia retained its leadership position, albeit by a diminished margin, with a 33% share of the market. Apple’s healthy performance this quarter saw it achieve a 17% share worldwide, a little ahead of RIM, which held a 15% share this quarter.
In the world’s largest smart phone market, the US, Apple ousted RIM from the top spot, seizing a 26% share as iPhone shipments continued unabated. RIM has also launched its latest generation smart phone, the Torch, though it only saw half a quarter’s shipments in the US. But the plethora of smart phones running the Open Handset Alliance’s (OHA’s) Android platform meant that Canalys’ final published country-level data shows that it took the lead in the US market by operating system (OS), with a 44% share.

Once again this quarter, it was devices running the Android platform that proved the greatest driver of growth in the worldwide market, up 1,309% year-on-year from 1.4 million in Q3 2009 to more than 20.0 million units in Q3 2010, forming a quarter of the market share.

Driven by Nokia, the Symbian Foundation retained its position as the leading smart phone OS vendor worldwide.

Devices running Microsoft’s OS accounted for just 3% of worldwide smart phone shipments in Q3 2010, though with the launch of Windows Phone 7 devices, the outlook for the fourth quarter and beyond is significantly improved.

SOURCE canalys.com