MacRumors

Market research surveys can certainly be hit-or-miss when it comes to revealing companies' future product plans, but a new one from satellite TV provider DirecTV dug up by Engadget hints at the intriguing possibility of the company's "NFL Sunday Ticket" sports package being made available through the new Apple TV as well as a number of other devices.

According to a tipster, some of the questions asking about potential pricing setups indicated the digital version would be available via currently unsupported devices including internet connected Blu-ray players & TVs, "game machines," Apple TV, Roku and Boxee.

Such a move to push live streaming content to the Apple TV would mark a significant expansion of the device's capabilities. And while the service would presumably be offered as a menu option on the Apple TV in a similar manner to Netflix, the existing NFL Sunday Ticket iOS applications demonstrate how such content could be relatively easily moved to the new Apple TV should Apple decide to open up the platform to third-party applications.

In the United States, the traditional NFL Sunday Ticket TV package is available exclusively through DirecTV, making it one of the satellite television provider's key selling points for consumers. In addition to offering access via their set-top boxes, DirectTV also offers "NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go" for both its traditional subscribers and non-subscribers alike, allowing them to view content on their computers and on mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

Apple today released a minor software for the new Apple TV, moving the device's operating system from iOS 4.2 Build 8C150 to iOS 4.2.1 Build 8C154. The update is live on Apple's servers and several users have reported seeing the update become available for their Apple TVs, although not all Apple TVs are yet seeing the new iOS version as available for download.

It is unknown at this time what changes are included in the update.

Apple released iOS 4.2.1 (Build 8C148) for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on November 22nd, but the Apple TV's software update released the same day was only referred to as iOS 4.2 by Apple. Confusing things further is the fact that the Apple TV reports the previous software version as being "4.1", while we have heard that the new iOS 4.2.1 is referred to as software version "4.1.1" by the Apple TV.

Update: A support document notes that the software update resolves a pair of issues related to incorrect display resolutions and download performance.

- TV resolution fix: Addresses an issue that causes some high-definition TVs to incorrectly display at 480p.
- Download fix: Addresses an issue that may cause a movie or TV show to be re-downloaded.

While Apple's AirPlay feature introduced in iOS 4.2 allows users to stream certain video content from their iOS devices to the new Apple TV, users have been wondering if the service will ever be extended to allow content to be streamed to their Macs in a similar fashion. In addressing the question of whether such an implementation would be difficult, TUAW's Erica Sadun has put together an alpha version of a Mac OS X application known as "AirPlayer" that does exactly that.

What AirPlayer does is create and advertise a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV. Bonjour is Apple's zero configuration networking solution for allowing devices and applications to communicate with each other over local area networks. When Apple created AirPlay, it basically set up a new way for Apple TV to interact with iOS using Bonjour communications.

The functionality could in theory also be supported on Windows PCs as Apple offers Bonjour for Windows, although Sadun notes that she is not likely to attempt to build a Windows version anytime soon.

Interested users can download the ad-supported alpha version for Mac OS X from Sadun's website to test out the functionality. Users' iOS devices do not need to be jailbroken for the functionality to work, although some tools such as AirVideoEnabler that can extend AirPlay functionality to more iOS apps do require jailbreaking.

AirPlayer remains an early proof-of-concept release, and users are of course advised that there may be bugs and other quirks associated with the application.

Ad Age reports that the first iAd for the iPad will debut today in the form of an advertisement for the Disney film "Tron Legacy" premiering in theaters this weekend. According to the report, it is the only iPad-specific iAd scheduled for release before the end of the year.

The format, designed to maximize the ad potential of Apple's tablet computer, will be launched widely in early 2011 when other ads start flowing onto the platform.

Like its iPhone and iPod Touch predecessors, the first iPad iAd is chock-full of the rich graphics, touch navigation and video native to apps. The full-screen "Tron" ad, which will run in iPad apps such as TV Guide, includes close to 10 minutes of video, images from the movie, a theater locator with showtimes, and a preview of the movie soundtrack with the option to purchase on iTunes without leaving the ad. For the first time in any iAd, users will also be able to send email straight from within the ad.

Apple brought iAd compatibility to the iPad with the release of iOS 4.2 late last month, but production of the ads, which remains under the tight control of Apple, has taken some time to bring iPad-specific ads to market.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been Disney's largest individual shareholder since the media and entertainment company acquired animation studio Pixar in 2006. Jobs holds a seat on Disney's board of directors, and Apple and Disney have worked closely together in the past, likely smoothing the way for "Tron Legacy" to serve as the debut iAd for iPad.

Apple has announced its annual Europe-only iTunes Store holiday promotion, giving away free content each day from December 26th through January 6th. The company has also released a 12 Days of Christmas iOS application [App Store], available in countries participating in the promotion. The simple application, which is universal for iPhone/iPod touch and iPad compatibility, offers push notifications regarding each day's free content.

Unfortunately for customers in the U.S. and many other countries, the promotion will likely be unavailable if past years are any indication. Due to regional content licensing issues, the 12 Days of Christmas promotion has always been limited to European iTunes Stores. Many App Store developers are expected, however, to offer sales around the Christmas holiday in hopes of capturing business from users looking to load up their new iOS devices received as gifts.

Google today announced that it has updated its Google Voice App Store application to support the iPad and iPod touch. The application, which Google and Apple famously faced off over last year before Apple finally approved the app last month, offers an interface for interacting with Google's telephone service.

Starting today, you can download a new version of Google Voice that lets you use all the features of the app on these devices, such as sending and receiving free text messages - except, of course, make cellular calls.

While iPad and iPod touch users can't use the Google Voice app to make cellular phone calls through the service, Google has developed a system known as Click2Call that allows users to initiate calls through other devices.

While you can't use your iPod or iPad as a phone, you can use it to initiate Google Voice calls with your phones. We call this feature Click2Call. Simply click any 'Call' button in the Google Voice app on your iPod or iPad and then select which of your phones you want to ring. Google Voice will call your phone and then connect your call.

The update brings several other improvements, including the ability to set "do not disturb" times during which all calls are sent directly to voicemail and improvements for initiating calls from the address book.

Asymco's Horace Dediu offers an interesting analysis of new data on Verizon's smartphone device sales over the past year, concluding that, despite a growing Android platform, Verizon finds itself in a position in which it may have had little choice but to accept Apple's terms to bring the iPhone to the carrier.

Dediu's analysis is based on that fact that sales of Android and Windows Mobile smartphones at Verizon have grown only slightly faster than the rate at which sales of Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Palm's webOS devices have fallen so far in 2010, yielding an overall sales growth rate for Verizon far short of that seen with the iPhone on AT&T. But even Android by itself (and a small fraction of sales for Windows Mobile devices that can't be separated out from the Android data) isn't selling as well or growing nearly as quickly on Verizon as the iPhone is on AT&T.

In an apples-to-apples comparison, in Q3 the iPhone at AT&T outsold Android at Verizon (remember, same addressable market) by a factor of 2.5. This is with a variety of devices and vendors thrown in the market. We hardly ever get to see this finely grained a comparison when looking at platforms.

Analyzing the data on a month-by-month basis reveals an even sharper trend of a steep drop in Verizon smartphone unit sales since August as a diversifying range of smartphone vendors have been unable to sustain overall handset sales for the carrier in the fact of the iPhone 4 on AT&T.

Dediu concludes that Verizon has likely been forced to reconsider its 2009 strategy that saw the carrier betting on Android to slow the trend of customers defecting to AT&T for the iPhone. That change of heart coming with the realization that the iPhone is continuing to steal growth from Verizon's offering may have been responsible for the carrier finally sitting down with Apple to get a deal done for a Verizon iPhone.

Of course, there has been much rumor and speculation about AT&T's exclusivity period for the iPhone, which almost certainly played a significant role in the timing of negotiations between Apple and Verizon, but if the sales data presented in the new report is true, it represents an interesting look at Verizon sales figures that suggest that the carrier may truly need to offer the iPhone if it wishes to fight off AT&T's iPhone-driven momentum in the smartphone market.

According to the New York Times, Microsoft will once again be pushing their vision of the slate or tablet computer at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 in January.

According to people familiar with Microsofts plans, Steve Ballmer, Microsofts chief executive, is expected to announce a number of these devices when he takes the stage at C.E.S., showcasing devices built by Samsung and Dell, among a number of other manufacturing partners.

Microsoft has been long talking up the tablet or slate form factor over the years, but none of their products have reached mainstream success.

In fact, this time last year, rumors were full force about Apple's then-unreleased iPad. Talk of this Apple tablet dominated rumors and generated a lot of interest at 2010's CES even though Apple wasn't even a participant. Microsoft even demoed an HP slate PC which never ultimately came to market. Meanwhile, Apple's iPad has been seen as a huge success.

Microsoft's newest effort is said to be running under the Windows 7 operating system and is being aimed at a more productivity focused device than the iPad:

The company believes there is a huge market for business people who want to enjoy a slate for reading newspapers and magazines and then work on Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint while doing work, explained a person familiar with the companys tablet plans.

This week two Mac software bundles have launched. These bundles combine a number of Mac apps together into a discounted package.

The first comes from MacUpdate which we've partnered with a number of times over the past few years. The bundle includes the following apps for $49.99 ($534 value).

1Password - Password Manager
MacFamilyTree - Geneology app
DEVONthink - Organization software
Flux - XHTML and CSS web design
Default Folder X - Enhances open/save dialogs
Art Text + Fonts - Create high quality logos, headings, banners.
Swift Publisher - Make cards, certificates, letterheads, and more
Chronories - Diary app
Interarchy - FTP/SFTP client
Typinator - Auto-completes text as you type

1Password in particular is a highly recommended app that allows you to secure your online passwords. In light of the recent hacking of Gawker media it seems particularly relevant. The bundle can be purchased at MUPromo.com, and MacRumors is a promotional partner and benefits financially from referred sales.

Meanwhile, several independent developers have banded together to create the Indie Mac Gift Pack. This is a 6-app bundle that is being sold directly by the developers themselves. The apps include the following for $60 ($272 value)

Delicious Library 2 - track your collections
Acorn 2 - Image editor
MarsEdit 3 - Write, preview, publish your blog
Radioshift - Listen and record radio stations
SousChef - Search over 195,000 recipes
Sound Studio 4 - Record, edit and produce audio

The apps can be purchased at IndieMacGiftPack.com, and MacRumors has no financial association with this site.

Reuters reports on an article in Japan's Nikkei newspaper revealing that Toshiba is planning to invest nearly $1.2 billion in a new factory to make small LCD panels, with the plant being targeted primarily to supply Apple with displays for its small iOS devices like the iPhone. Apple is also said to be investing money in the new facility.

The company's wholly owned unit, Toshiba Mobile Display Co, will construct the facility in Ishikawa prefecture and the plant will churn out low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels, which allow for high-resolution images, the paper said.

Work on the plant will start by early next year, with the production due to begin in the second half of 2011, Nikkei said.

The forthcoming facility is said to allow Toshiba to more than double its existing capacity of about 8.5 million units per month.

Toshiba has been reported as one of the suppliers of the LCD panel for the iPhone 3GS, and is thought by some to also be involved with the Retina display of the iPhone 4, although the individual parts carry only Apple branding.

Update: In an updated version of the article, Reuters notes that a Toshiba spokesman has denied that such a commitment has been made.

A Toshiba spokesman said the report was untrue and nothing had been decided regarding a new plant to build LCD panels for Apple.

Update 2: DigiTimes has also weighed in to note that Toshiba has denied that Apple has invested in any such plant.

With 2010 coming to a close in a few weeks, publications and other sources are putting together their "best of" and "top" lists for the year, and it should come as no surprise to Apple followers that the iPad, iPhone and other Apple products have ranked highly in a number of prominent surveys.

- Google has published its Zeitgeist 2010, ranking top topics based on the billions of search queries made by users during the year. On a global basis, the iPad placed second among "fastest rising" topics, only narrowly trailing Chatroulette. When breaking things down into categories, the iPad topped the global consumer electronics category with the iPhone 4 taking second place.

Apple fared even better when looking at the fastest rising trends in just the United States, with the iPad taking the top overall spot over Chatroulette and the iPhone 4 landing in third place. Apple as a company ranked eighth among fastest rising news search terms, while its retail stores ranked eighth among rising search terms for Google Maps. Among image searches, the iPhone and iPad took eighth and tenth place respectivey. Finally, Google's product search category saw the iPad top the list, with iPhone 4 cases checking in in tenth place.

- Twitter is publishing a series of Year in Review features, and its "Trends on Twitter" page shows the iPad topping the technology category for items discussed on Twitter during the year, while also grabbing the sixth spot in overall top trends. iOS ranked third in the technology category, while the iPhone took fourth place and the MacBook Air ranked ninth.

- Time has published its list of Top 10 Gadgets for 2010, and the iPad again took the top spot in the rankings.

It's not the first touchscreen tablet in the history of computing, but it's easily the most successful so far. With 3 million iPads sold in their first month alone and a market for interactive magazines and newspapers created almost overnight, Apple finally managed to make tablet computing cool.

The 11-inch MacBook Air snagged third place, while the iPhone 4 took sixth and the new Apple TV came in seventh.

Time also published a list of top iPhone apps headed by Netflix, while Angry Birds, the hit iOS game that is now also available on Android, took second place among top video games. Apple also scored a mention at the top of the "oddball news stories" category with the $8 million diamond-encrusted iPhone 4.

Back in August, we reported that Interval Licensing, a patent licensing firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, had filed suit against Apple, Google, and a number of other prominent technology companies over alleged infringement of several patents related to e-commerce and Web search technologies.

In an update on the case, The Wall Street Journal reports that Allen's firm has just been dealt a setback, with a federal judge Friday dismissing the complaint over its lack of specificity regarding exactly which products are alleged to have infringed the patents.

Google and Apple filed motions to dismiss the complaint because it doesn't specify which of the defendants' goods or services infringe the Interval patents.

"The allegations in the complaint are spartan," Judge Pechman wrote, siding with the defendants.

Standards for specificity of allegations in civil cases have been tightened in recent years as a result of a Supreme Court ruling, said Alan Fisch, a partner at the law firm Kaye Scholer LLP in Washington.

The setback appears to only be a temporary one, however, as Interval Licensing intends to refile its complaint in the very near future with the required specificity standards met. The judge has given Interval Licensing until December 28th to do so.

The suit is one of many currently being faced by Apple, which has been reported to be the most-sued technology company over the last several years.

Google today officially debuted its Google Latitude application on the App Store, bringing a native iOS app experience to users of the company's location-sharing service for the first time.

With Google Latitude, see where your friends are right now. Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map.

With Latitude, you can:
- See your friends on a map - find out who's nearby and meet up.
- Share your location continuously with whomever you choose - help friends and family stay in touch with you, even when you cant take out your phone.
- Control your privacy - share only city-level location, hide your location, or turn off background updating at any time.

The application briefly went live in some countries last week, but was quickly pulled for unknown reasons. That version was labeled 1.0.0, while today's version is labeled 2.0.0.346, so perhaps a significant issue with the initial release was discovered as it was being rolled out.

Google Latitude launched in February 2009, but did not initially offer support for iPhone users. The company rolled out a web app version of Google Latitude for iPhone users in July 2009, noting that Apple had requested that Google utilize a web app rather than a native App Store app over fears that users might confuse a Google Latitude app with the built-in Maps app on iOS.

Back in September, Apple published its App Store review guidelines for the first time, increasing transparency and relaxing some of the earlier restrictions on App Store content.