Stashbits: iPhone & iTunes Market Share Up, New Model Coming To Walmart?

Digital sales have continued to grow annually with iTunes being the biggest of them all. But what exists outside of the digital space will soon be Apple’s biggest competitors as downloads start to outpace store bought items. Taking in a little more than 1/10th of music sales in the US is a good start but it will take some time before Apple can knock down the monumental retail chains. Meanwhile, Apple has enjoyed a comparable amount of growth with the iPhone surpassing Windows Mobile phones in terms of sales. But these sales could blossom if rumors of a $99 iPhone 3G ring true.

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Stashbits: Apple In-Ear Headphones Available, 24 Inch LED Cinema Display Deboxed

Despite managing to ship their newest iPods introduced during the fall 2008 media event, Apple has slipped on delivering their newest earbuds which bring mic and playback controls buttons (but are only supported on the 4G Nano, 2G Classic and Touch) alongside new in-ear headphones. However, shoppers visiting the online store will notice the in-ear headphones can be ordered and will ship soon. Meanwhile, Apple has started to ship out the newest addition to the Cinema Display line and the lucky Bloggers of Apple Insider have posted unboxing pictures.

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Stashbits: Apple Takes Record Smartphone Lead, Backtracks On Ads

Apple has always put its weight behind a mass marketing campaign for any new product but it seems to be more aggressive when it comes to the iPhone as detailed in recent ads for the latest iteration of the hot selling device. While claims of doubled Internet speeds have been rebuked and called out for deceptive marketing, Apple has closed in on the Smartphone market taking an impressive 16% share.

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Stashbits: iPhone 2.2 Jailbroken & Google Street View For iPod Touch

Within days of arriving in the hands of iPhone and iPod Touch owners everywhere, Firmware 2.2 has been quickly dissected and reviewed. Thanks to a prolonged testing period, the iPhone Dev Team was able to perform a Jailbreak on the still in development Firmware and perfect it once Apple made it available for download. While available for all generations of iPhone and iPod Touch, there are some key differences between the two such as the lack of Google Street View on the later and lack of Emojicon support on non Japanese iPhones. With a simple hack and a quick Jailbreak, all of this can be remedied.

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Stashbits: AppleTV 2.3 Update & Boxee Fix

Apple has rolled out a recent update for the AppleTV shortly after the iPhone Firmware 2.2 upgrade and iTunes 8.0.2 update bringing it up to version 2.3. The newest update for Apple’s little bundle of media streaming, popcorn inducing box of wonders brings a few features streaming junkies will love. Meanwhile, this update breaks any third party hacks forced on to the AppleTV which also means the popular media center Addon, Boxee, was broken for a while but a fix pushed out by the company patches things right up.

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Stashbits: iTunes 8.0.2 & iPhone 2.2

Apple has been busy streamlining the iPhone interface and improving the underlying OS through many Firmware upgrades available for current and previous generation models. The continuation of those efforts have materialized in the much awaited iPhone 2.2 Firmware update bringing various improvements and features to Maps, iTunes and Safari plus other minor interface tweaks. In addition, Apple has recently pushed out a minor update to iTunes bringing it up to version 8.0.2 and including Voice Over support amongst bug fixes.

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Stashbits: OS X 10.5.6 Making Progress & Fixes, iPod Firmware Updates

Since Apple launched Mobile Me in July, steady updates have given the Internet reliant service greater stability and much better integration with the devices information is synced to and from. The next upgrade is expected to arrive in a new a point update for Leopard, 10.5.6, which will also include over 90 bug fixes for various aspects of the Operating System. On the note of updates, Apple pushed out point updades for the newest iPod Nano and iPod Classic.

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Stashbits: Parallels 4, Delayed In-Ear Headphones

Parallels 4 has been released to consumers today bringing with it, a monumental improvement in speed and resource handling along side support for Leopard server virtualization. While Parallels 4 may be shipping, Apple has slipped on delivering their newest in-ear headphones to the masses.

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Intel Downplays ARM Architecture, Full iPhone Capabilities

Intel and ARM have played an important role in Apple’s products with both producing Chipsets and CPUs for Macs, iPods and iPhones. Despite a very close relationship between Apple and Intel, ARM was chosen to provide the processing technology behind the iPhone in spite of the upcoming Moorestown architecture. Intel has gone on to minimize the impact of ARM’s future products and promote their own brand of CPUs for Mobile Internet Devices and Phones.

This isn’t the first time Intel has publicly challenged other companies when they impede on the many market segments they cater too. Earlier this year Nvidia called out Intel for poor graphics performance from their Integrated Graphics Chipset which forced all video processing tasks onto the CPU with horrible 3D performance. Intel responded with further development for their Larrabee platform which combines a GPU onto the CPU die despite premonitions from Nvidia that common processors would be replaced by the much faster graphics processors found in today’s video cards.

While promoting their new Moorestown platform at the Taipei Developer Conference, they touted a full Internet experience on a mobile device which far surpassed the iPhone due to the technological differences in CPUs. Intel followed up with a lack of approval for ARM’s roadmap. Intel was quick to point out that the iPhone’s Software was not the reason for not delivering the full experience Intel is aiming for but rather the Chipset utilized by Apple from ARM. Despite Intel promising greater advantages in their mobile CPUs, they won’t be readily available until sometime in 2009. Apple has cemented ARM into their mobile products by buying out the company and receiving a specialized version of their CPUs.

It seems that Apple is dead set on not utilizing mobile Intel CPUs and Chipsets for the iPod and iPhone. Instead, Apple is shifting focus on using 3rd party designs to design for a single system on a chip that would tie together the Chipset, Graphics Processor and CPU on a single die. Apple’s purchase of P.A. Semi and a possible license of Imagination Technologie’s PowerVR Graphics Processor give further proof to Intel free pocketable devices.

Via: Apple Insider

Reports Of Steve Job’s Heart Attack Are Greatly Exaggerated

Ever since the watching game began on Stevie J’s health after his skinny frame took place on stage during the June WWDC conference, rumors have been fluttering around his supposed death or at least near ready to keel over status. iReport, a community driven content network took that to a new level this morning by propagating a false story on Steve Jobs suffering a heart attack which was picked up by major news outlets such as CNN. Apple has publicly denied Steve Jobs dropping dead and the implications are being taken seriously by the SEC as an attempt at stock manipulation.

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