MacRumors

Analytics firm App Annie has released its February data (via AppleInsider) on top-performing apps on iOS and Android for the month of February, highlighting how large developers have increasingly been able to leverage television commercials to help boost their rankings. Such tactics are obviously not within financial reach of most developers, but established players such as King and Big Fish Games have the resources to make an impact on television.

In looking at the top App Store games by revenue in February, App Annie notes that King's Farm Heroes Saga leapt sixteen places from the previous month to land in seventh place, while Big Fish Casino moved up six places to just break into the top ten. Both games have benefited from television advertising in recent months, driving their visibility and user interest.

Farm Heroes Saga made major gains in iOS revenue in February, giving publisher King three of the Top 10 positions. [...] Farm Heroes Saga received extensive TV and print campaigns in the United Kingdom and United States, and performed strongly in both markets.

Another app receiving extensive TV commercials in the United States in February was Big Fish Casino, which made significant gains to join the Top 10 games by iOS revenue. It was interesting to note that the commercials for Big Fish Casino targeted female players, a marketing stance that has been adopted by several big game publishers in 2014.

Long-standing top performers Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga have also seen significant television advertising in recent months.

The Flappy Bird phenomenon was obviously strong in the month of February, with developer Dong Nguyen's .Gears Studio ranking number one in total App Store game downloads in February, despite having only three titles in the store and Flappy Bird itself having been taken down on the 9th of the month. Even so, Flappy Bird ranked as the most downloaded game for the month, while another title, Super Ball Juggling, placed seventh.

And of course the rush of copycats also saw an impact, with a number of Flappy Bird clones seeing substantial success during the month, particularly in the wake of Flappy Bird's removal. At one point late last month, one-third of all new App Store games were either clones of Flappy Bird or inspired by the title. Only a small fraction of those titles seeking to ride on the popularity of Flappy Bird experienced success, but those that did saw very high numbers of downloads.

Apple is gearing up to release new MacBook models in 2014 including a MacBook Air with Retina Display, according to a new report from DigiTimes citing supply chain sources. The story notes that while some Taiwan-based supply chain makers are expecting MacBook shipments in 2014 to fall to 10 million units, others are projecting higher numbers with the belief that Apple's will refresh of its notebook line later this year and release a Retina MacBook Air.

However, other Taiwan-based supply chain makers hold the opinion that 2014 MacBook shipments estimates may not be accurate because Apple will launch new models in the second half of 2014. Apple will reportedly launch a MacBook Air with Retina display, the makers said.

Last week, a forum post from a previously accurate source on Weiphone.com claimed that the MacBook Air would be updated soon, with new MacBook Pros to be released in September. Most notably, the report claimed that both will be accompanied by the release of a new slim 12-inch MacBook, which will come without a fan assembly and feature a redesigned trackpad.

It is also possible that the new MacBook Air mentioned in the report and the slim 12-inch MacBook mentioned in the forum post could be the same laptop, which would fall in line with a report from NPD DisplaySearch last year claiming that Apple is planning to introduce a 12-inch MacBook Air in 2014. That report added that the 12-inch MacBook Air would come with an ultra-high resolution 2304 x 1440 display, and was corroborated by the reliable Ming-Chi Kuo.

The post also comments on Apple launching a larger iPad with a near 12-inch screen, however a report earlier this month claims that the project has since been put on hold due to development hurdles and incompatibilities with the existing iOS ecosystem.

A few new insider details on the development of the original iPhone have come to light thanks to Apple senior software engineer Greg Christie, who gave an interview with The Wall Street Journal with permission from Apple, ahead of a new patent infringement trial against Samsung that is set to begin soon.

According to Christie, who joined the secret "purple" iPhone project after an invitation from Scott Forstall, his team was responsible for many key iPhone elements, such as sliding to unlock, placing calls from the address book, and more. He and his team spent countless hours perfecting details like the speed of scrolling, and the feel of bouncing back at the end of a list.

He said his team "banged their head against the wall" over how to change text messages from a chronological list of individual messages to a series of separate ongoing conversations similar to instant messaging on a computer.

He also said the team was "shockingly small." Apple declined to specify the number of members.

Christie gave two progress reports to Jobs each month, in a small, windowless meeting room at the company's Cupertino headquarters. Few people had access to the room and even cleaning people were not allowed to enter. The secrecy surrounding the original iPhone's design was incredible, with Jobs even requiring employees to encrypt images of the device.

Jobs was initially unhappy with Christie's progress on the device, and gave his team two weeks to improve.

"Steve had pretty much had it," said Mr. Christie, who still heads Apple's user-interface team. "He wanted bigger ideas and bigger concepts."

Christie's team was able to impress Jobs within the deadline, later giving presentations to Apple's design chief Jony Ive and Apple director Bill Cambell, who said the iPhone "would be better than the original Mac." All three approved the 2005 design, kicking off a "2 and a half year marathon" where the iPhone was designed from the ground up with Jobs clearing every minor detail, as has been noted in several previous reports of the iPhone's development.

Christie's details on the creation of the original iPhone come just ahead of a second major patent infringement lawsuit with Samsung, set to begin later in March. Apple initially accused Samsung of grossly infringing on both its patents and its designs in 2011, a lawsuit that resulted in a $890 million penalty for the South Korean company in the United States.

While the first lawsuit covered older devices, the second U.S. patent lawsuit between the two companies covers more recent products like the Galaxy Note II, the Galaxy S III, the iPhone 5, and the iPad 4.

The full interview on The Wall Street Journal, which is well worth reading, also includes additional tidbits on the secrecy behind the development of the iPhone, major last minute changes, and details on the original iPhone's unveiling.

Apple has plans to expand its emoji set to include emojis that are non-caucasian, according to Apple’s vice president of worldwide corporate communications, Katie Cotton, who spoke to MTV Act (via The Verge). The company says it is working with the Unicode Consortium to add more characters to its emoji offerings.

"Tim forwarded your email to me. We agree with you. Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard."

After originating in Japan, emoji were incorporated into Unicode, which allowed them to be used on multiple platforms. The character set has largely featured caucasian icons, however, which Apple aims to change.

Apple's last change to emojis came with iOS 6, when the company added additional characters and made emoji accessible to all users. Previously, special apps were required to access emoji on iOS. iOS 7, released in late 2013, did not include any new emoji, but it is possible Apple could make some changes to the characters with iOS 8 later this year.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple is beefing up its online retail team with the addition of former Delta Air Lines Vice President of Marketing Bob Kupbens, reports AdAge. According to his LinkedIn profile, Kupbens is now serving as Apple's Vice President of Online Retail after leaving Delta earlier this month.

Kupbens originally jointed Delta in 2010 and before that, he spent eight years transitioning through several roles at Target, last serving as a vice president. During a 2013 AdAge conference, Kupbens spoke on the importance of "love brands" noting that every consumer has five brands “they really love.”

"I used to work at Target and when you went to a cocktail party and you told people that you worked at Target, you know what they'd say?" he asked. "'I love Target! I'll give you a big hug!' You know what people say when you tell them at a cocktail party that you work at Delta? 'I hate you! You lost my bag! You had me on the tarmac for seven hours. I'm going to kill you!' It's different when you work for a love brand.”

Like Target, Apple is undoubtedly a "love brand" for millions of people, inspiring its fans to wait in line for hours and even days for new products. Many companies even parody consumer dedication to the brand, with Samsung, for example, mocking Apple fans in an array of anti-iPhone commercials.

Bob Kupbens will presumably work under Angela Ahrendts, who will begin her role a Senior Vice President at Apple in the coming months, leading both the company's retail and online teams. Ahrendts, who is currently transitioning out of her role as Burberry's CEO, will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

With the addition of Kupbens and Ahrendts, Apple will finally have strong leadership for its retail division. The company has been without a leader since John Browett was fired in October of 2012 during a significant management restructuring.

As documented in its quarterly earnings reports over the years, Apple reported total sales of 472 million iPhones between the device's 2007 launch and the end of 2013. With analyst estimates of over 38 million units for the current quarter ending in just a few days, the company has undoubtedly already sold its 500 millionth iPhone, a milestone that passed without mention from the Cupertino company, notes Forbes.

The consensus would have placed the milestone sale around March 8 given that entering the quarter Apple had sold 472 million iPhones. So even if it proves a bit high as it did last quarter, we’ve crossed the point where it’s safe to assume that Apple has sold 500 million smartphones in less than 7 years. And the most recent 100 million took somewhere between 2-6 weeks less than the previous 100 million did.

Apple is known for celebrating notable milestones, changing its homepage for the 30th anniversary of the Mac and setting up countdowns on its website for App Store milestones. The company reached the 50 billion app download milestone in May 2013 and awarded a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card to the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app.

Even though Apple didn't announce the 500 million iPhone milestone, it is not without significance. Quarterly iPhone sales continue to rise consistently on a year-over-year basis, with the company selling a record 51 million iPhones in fiscal Q1 2014, up from 47.8 million in the same time period in the prior year.

These next few quarters may see a slump in iPhone sales as Apple gears up for a possible fall launch of the iPhone 6. Apple's upcoming iPhone 6 is widely rumored to include a larger display, which could encourage a significant number of users to upgrade in 2014 and cause another spike in sales later this year.

Steve Jobs biopic, "Jobs", is now available on Netflix's streaming service for U.S. customers. Directed by Joshua Michael Stern and starring Ashton Kutcher as the Apple co-founder, the film is free for U.S. customers who subscribe to Netflix's $7.99 monthly unlimited streaming plan.

Originally released in August 2013, the independent film received mixed reviews with many critics saying the movie focused too much on Apple and not enough on the character of Jobs, providing only a "skin-deep portrait" of the complex figure who lead Apple to greatness. It earned a 27% approval rating among critics and a 41% audience approval rating on movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.

"Jobs" also can be purchased via iTunes for $19.99 in high definition or $14.99 in standard definition. A 24-hour rental option is available for $4.99 (HD) or $3.99 (SD).

Update 1:10 PM: "Jobs" is no longer available for streaming on Netflix. It is unclear why the film was removed from the site and if the unavailability is only temporary.

Update March 26, 11:52 AM: "Jobs" is once again available for streaming.