MacRumors

The Loop reports that Apple and News Corp have issued invitations for a media event scheduled for Wednesday, February 2nd at 11:00 AM to introduce The Daily, a new tablet-focused news publication set to debut on the iPad.

According to the invitation, the event will be held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and will feature Eddy Cue, Apple's longtime iTunes executive who currently holds the title of Vice President of Internet Services.

Apple has been claimed to have worked with News Corp to develop new functionality to support recurring billing via users' iTunes accounts for subscriptions to publications such as The Daily. The Daily is rumored to be priced at 99 cents per week after a free introductory period.

A number of companies either connected to or competing with Apple's iPhone have reported earnings yesterday and today, helping to paint a picture of the current status of the smartphone market.

AT&T, Apple's longtime exclusive iPhone partner in the United States, reported that it had activated 4.1 million iPhones during the fourth quarter of 2010, a figure that has historically included both sales of new devices and re-activations of previously-sold devices either handed down or resold by their owners. The new activations are down from the previous quarter that saw 5.2 million activations on the carrier.

Looking at its broader wireless business, AT&T added 2.8 million wireless subscribers during the quarter to reach a record 95.5 million customers, although only 400,000 of those net additions were of the more profitable postpaid contract variety. A full 61% of the company's 68 million postpaid subscribers are now on "integrated devices" offering virtual or physical QWERTY keyboards, up from 46.8% a year ago.

AT&T also announced that it added a total of 442,000 iPad and Android-based tablets to its network during the quarter, noting that the segment marks a substantial new growth market for the carrier but declining to break out the mix between iPad and Android devices.

Overall, AT&T's earnings were down substantially from the year-ago quarter, although the difference is primarily due to one-time accounting charges for pension and restructuring obligations. But analysts have expressed concern about AT&T going forward, citing lower-than-expected performance in its landline phone business and concerns over the effect of loss of exclusivity for the iPhone.

AT&T's results come as a pair of smartphone manufacturers reported their own earnings, taking the opportunity to express concern over the iPhone's debut on Verizon next month. Motorola Mobility announced results essentially in line with analyst expectations, but offered guidance for the current quarter of a net loss of between 9 and 21 cents, below the break-even expectations of analysts. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha noted during a conference call discussing the earnings that the carrier has already seen a slowdown in sales as customers wait for the iPhone to come available on Verizon.

"I think that we have seen some slowdown as a result of the announcement at Verizon," CEO Sanjay Jha told analysts on a conference call.

Meanwhile, Nokia posted another earnings drop and acknowledged its continuing losses in smartphone market share that has seen the company's portion of the market sink to 31% from 40% in the year-ago quarter. Looking ahead, Nokia is also guiding toward a weak first quarter of 2011 as the company seeks to develop competitive strategies under new CEO Stephen Elop to both bolster its sagging traditional mobile phone sales and face off against the iPhone and Android devices in the smartphone segment. According to Elop:

"In Q4 we delivered solid performance across all three of our businesses, and generated outstanding cash flow. Additionally, growth trends in the mobile devices market continue to be encouraging. Yet, Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it's time for Nokia to change faster."

Skype today announced that Skype 5 has gone gold, exiting the beta stage that began last November. The company has made a number of tweaks to the application based on user feedback from the beta period, primarily working to reduce the size of the application's window as it attempts to find the optimum layout for the new single-window interface.

We've reduced the minimum window size, so that those of you who prefer to keep Skype to one side of your screen, for example, can do that more easily. We've also tightened up the contact list, so that you can see 30% more contacts at once. We've reduced the amount of whitespace in the sidebar too.

In addition, we've tweaked the way instant messages are displayed to reduce the amount of whitespace, allowing you to see more of your conversations without scrolling.

Other changes include the return of full-screen mode for video calls and easier access to chatting functions during calls.

But probably the most significant change is the shift of group video calling to Skype's premium package, priced at $4.99 per day or $8.99 per month. The feature had been free during the beta testing period, although the company had signaled its intentions to charge for it once it officially launched.

As noted by Business Insider, Netflix today revealed in its quarterly earnings release (PDF) that the new Apple TV released at the end of September has already surpassed the iPad in terms of number of hours of Netflix content streamed.

The devices with large installed bases - meaning Windows and Mac laptops, Sony PS3, Microsoft Xbox, and Nintendo Wii - are the most popular devices for watching instantly from Netflix. AppleTV has done very well for us, and in just four months has passed the also-growing iPad in Netflix viewing hours.

While it should not be a surprise that the Apple TV is seeing strong performance when it comes to Netflix streaming due to its position as a set-top box for viewing content on a traditional TV, it is somewhat remarkable given the disparity in sales volumes between the two Apple products.

Apple's most recent earnings release revealed that the company has sold nearly 15 million iPads, while the Apple TV only reached the one-million mark at the close of the year. While not all of the sales of either device have occurred in markets where Netflix offers streaming content, iPads still likely outnumber Apple TVs by at least an order of magnitude in Netflix's markets.

Verizon has begun sending out information to corporate customers with more details about their iPhone launch. Verizon is offering existing customers a chance to buy the Verizon iPhone on February 3rd, a week before the general public.

According to the email we've received, Verizon will begin pre-order sales at 3am Eastern on February 3rd.

- Make sure you have your My Verizon self-serve account set-up online. Orders can only be placed through your my Verizon account. You can register/setup your account at... secure.verizon.com

- On February 3rd at 3am EST, Verizon Wireless will allow our current customers to order upgrades or new lines to their accounts through your My Verizon online account (make sure you have registered before the 3rd).

The email also indicates that the pre-sale inventory is limited, so when that inventory is depleted, customers will have to wait until the February 10th public launch date.

Verizon is also allowing some existing AT&T iPhone customers to trade-in their iPhone for credit when buying a new Verizon iPhone 4. We not sure if this will be offered to non-corporate accounts, but the trade-in price list is as follows:

iPhone 2G - 16GB: $60
iPhone 3G - 16GB: $105
iPhone 3Gs 32GB: $160
iPhone 4- 16GB: $280
iPhone 4 - 32GB: $360

Customers, of course, could do better selling their iPhones themselves, though this could provide a relatively low-hassle way to switch carriers. The prices listed here are higher than Verizon's normal trade-in program. New Verizon iPhones will be shipped 2 day FedEx by default or optionally next day air.

MacRumors has heard from several sources that supplies of Apple's existing MacBook Pro models, particularly the 15" and 17" sizes, are beginning to run low in Apple stores and at third-party retailers, suggesting that the company may be drawing down stock in advance of an update to the product line. At least one major retail chain has reportedly notified its branches that it has been unable to fulfill replenishment orders, a situation that has been tied to forthcoming product updates in the past.

The 17" MacBook Pro generally appears to be in the shortest supply at the moment, with Amazon quoting a shipment window of 1-2 months for the base Core i5 model and several popular resellers connected through Amazon's systems also showing low stocks of the 17" models. For its part, Apple continues to show "within 24-hour" availability of all MacBook Pro models in its online stores, suggesting that the company may be prioritizing remaining stock to serve its customers directly.

Apple's MacBook Pro has been expected to receive an update in the relatively near future, as the line is due for an revision any time now and sources have indicated that the MacBook Pros would indeed be updated some time in the first half of this year. A new version of the MacBook Pro will almost certainly incorporate Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture and could see the company adopt some aspects of the its successfully revamped MacBook Air in order to improve performance and reduce size and weight.

Popular gaming firm Feral Interactive made a brief debut on the Mac App Store at the marketplace's launch earlier this month, offering its LEGO Harry Potter title for a very brief time before pulling the application, apparently due to issues with file corruption possibly related to the large download size. But Feral is now back in the Mac App Store in a big way: Besides restoring LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 to the store, the company has also rolled out three other titles, including BioShock, Borderlands, and Rome: Total War.

BioShock, the popular first-persion shooter game that originally debuted for Mac in late 2007, has been ranked among the top gaming titles of the last few years by numerous outlets. The game is priced at $39.99 on the Mac App Store.

Set in an alternate 1960, BioShock places you in the middle of an underwater utopia gone badly wrong. With a provocative and intelligent storyline, this is a game that is alternately beautiful, thrilling, funny, frightening and always involving. An experience that makes you think while you play.

Borderlands, another science fiction-themed first-person shooter, was only released on the Mac platform last month, coming in a "Game of the Year" edition with bonus content included. That expanded edition is now also available through the Mac App Store, priced at $49.99.

Finally, Feral has released Rome: Total War ($29.99), a strategy game available in a "Gold Edition" that also includes the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack for the original game. And of course LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 is now back in the Mac App Store at the same $49.99 price point at which it originally appeared.

Feral is not the only big-name Mac game developer to start bringing its titles to the Mac App Store, as Aspyr Media earlier this month launched Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Civilization IV: Colonization, the first of what is expected to a significant number of Aspyr titles to make their way to the Mac App Store.

Associated Press reports that AT&T is quietly offering some of its iPhone customers the ability to switch to unlimited data plans as a means to keep them from defecting to Verizon, which is rolling out an unlimited data plan of its own for a limited time as the carrier launches the iPhone next month.

According to the report, AT&T's offer is being made to customers who had previously been on an unlimited data plan for the iPhone on AT&T but had switched to one of the company's lower-cost capped plans when it restructured its data plans as the iPhone 4 was announced last June. As part of that restructuring, customers with unlimited data have been permitted to retain their plans, but those who opted to switch to capped plans were told that once that change had been made they would be unable to switch back to unlimited data at any time in the future.

Based on this new report, AT&T appears to quietly be making exceptions to that policy, allowing users to move back to unlimited data rather than seeing them defect to Verizon.

Verizon Wireless will start offering the iPhone on Feb. 10 with a draw that AT&T no longer offers to new subscribers: a plan with unlimited data usage. But The Associated Press has learned that some AT&T iPhone users on limited plans won't need to move to Verizon for unlimited data.

In an unadvertised loophole, AT&T Inc. has allowed subscribers who have had an unlimited data plan in the past to switch back. That includes anyone who had an iPhone before June, when the limited plans took effect.

AT&T has declined to comment on the change in policy.

With the Apple online store's downtime last night, the company appears to have rolled out full details of the options available for Verizon iPhone customers. With both 16 GB ($199) and 32 GB ($299) models available, customers will be required to accept a two-year contract while selecting from various options for voice, data, and messaging plans.

Individual voice plans begin at $39.99 per month for 450 minutes, with 900 minutes available for $59.99 and Nationwide Unlimited checking in at $69.99. Family SharePlans begin at $69.99 for 700 minutes, with 1400 minutes ($89.99), 2000 minutes ($99.99) and unlimited ($119.99) also available.

As had been previously revealed, the only data plan currently available for the Verizon iPhone is a $29.99 unlimited plan with an add-on option offering 2 GB of mobile hotspot and tethering data per month for an additional $20.

Messaging options check in at $5 (250 messages), $10 (500 messages), and $20 (unlimited messages). Customers can also decline to add a messaging and plan and simply be billed at a per-message rate of 20 cents text and 25 cents per picture/video message. Family SharePlan messaging options include the same pay per use, $5, and $10 plans as on the individual track, but the $20 messaging plan includes 5000 messages for family talk customers with an additional $30 plan offering unlimited shared messages across devices on the plan.

Update: Apple appears to have removed the Verizon iPhone ordering pages from its site.

Research firm Canalys today announced the release of its latest estimates of computer sales for the fourth quarter of 2010, showing Apple jumping to third place in worldwide market share at 10.8% when tablets such as the iPad are counted as computers.

With the iPad surging into the market, Canalys calculates Apple's unit shipment growth at 241% year-over-year to catapult the company from a 3.8% global share to its present 10.8% share that squeaks by Dell for third place behind HP and Acer.

In support of the inclusion of "pad" devices such as the iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab in its PC market numbers, Canalys argues that the definition of the PC has constantly been evolving and that tablet devices like the iPad do offer a true computing experience.

'Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,' said Chiam. 'With screen sizes of seven inches or above, ample processing power, and a growing number of applications, pads offer a computing experience comparable to netbooks. They compete for the same customers and will happily coexist. As with smart phones, some users will require a physical keyboard, while others will do without.'

'Each new product category typically causes a significant shift in market shares,' said Chiam. 'Apple is benefiting from pads, just as Acer, Samsung and Asus previously did with netbooks. The PC industry has always evolved this way, starting when Toshiba and Compaq rode high on the original notebook wave.'

Several reports showed Apple claiming third place in the global mobile computing market in earlier quarters, but the new Canalys report appears to be the first showing Apple attaining the position in the overall (notebook/desktop/server) market.

Apple made some slight design changes to their website tonight, with a new dark navigation bar, as well as spring loaded and slide-in animations for products. The new design resulted in several hours of downtime for the Apple online store.

Some last minute part numbers had suggested the long awaited white iPhone may have been making an appearance, but that was not the case. The online store has adopted the new darker navigation bar, but there are no signs of new products.

The Online Apple Store went down tonight, which can mean new product updates. Late night downtime, however, typically points to maintenance.

One tweet claims that the downtime is related to the launch of the long-delayed white iPhone. The new iPhone parts are claimed to be MC604X/A (16GB) and MC606X/A (32GB) for the White model. The news is attributed to a forum poster who frequently has access to last minute part number lists which have been accurate in the past.

Update: The store returned with a new design but no white iPhone.

Apple today released a new iPad commercial entitled "iPad is Iconic", airing the ad on primetime television and posting it to the company's YouTube page to show off a number of high-profile applications for the popular tablet device.

As with previous commercials in the series, the new ad offers the same soundtrack and follows the same theme of displaying a series of quick shots of the iPad's capabilities interspersed with corresponding single-word descriptions relevant to the "iPad is..." theme: "fresh" (djay), "tickets" (American Airlines HD), "news" (The Wall Street Journal), "stories" (iBooks), a running counter racing past 60,000 iPad apps available in the App Store, "students" (Pages), "teachers" (Noterize), "hollywood" (Movie★Slate), and "iconic" (Vanity Fair Magazine).

Macworld received official word from Verizon about the pricing of the new wireless hotspot feature announced earlier this month.

Raney said that Verizon iPhone owners will be able to take advantage of the 3G wireless hotspot feature for an extra $20 per month on top of the iPhones required voice and data plans--thats the same price that applies to current Verizon smartphone owners.

The wireless hotspot feature allows Verizon iPhone users to share their 3G internet connection over Wi-fi to up to 5 other devices, such as your laptop or iPad. This $20/month fee would be on top of the existing voice and data plans and is said to include 2GB of additional data.

AT&T presently offers single device tethering for the same cost ($20/mo extra) and is said to be exploring offering the same wireless hotspot tethering. This feature will be included in iOS 4.3, but will be dependent on carriers to provide support for it.

With rumors swirling that a launch for the white iPhone 4 could finally occur in the near future, questions have been raised about what Apple has done to finally enable the company to possibly begin shipping the device to consumers. While Apple has not officially acknowledged the reasons for the delay, rumors have suggested that problems with the paint being used leading to light leaking through the painted surfaces have been pegged as the issue.

According to Mac Otakara (via iLounge), a small Japanese company has developed a process for controlling the uniform application of white paint to the iPhone 4, resulting in acceptable units coming off the assembly lines.

According to a source, specified printing white color for iPhone 4 brings poor yield and then huge number of defective products. This is the reason of disturbing to start manufacturing, a source said.

To solve this problem, a Japanese company developed miracle painting material which is able to be set thickness of painting layer.

Making no mention of the original report, AppleInsider has offered nearly identical information, and it is thus unclear whether that site's information is based on separate sources or the same sources or even the same report.

Microsoft today announced that it has launched free 30-day trial licenses for Office for Mac 2011, offering users the ability to test drive the popular productivity suite before committing to a purchase.

If you're still thinking about Office 2011, I'm happy to announce we now have a full trial available at www.microsoft.com/mac/trial, free to use for 30-days after download. We know it's important for some of you to be able to test out new features. For those that will be trying the suite for the first time, we hope you enjoy some of the new items - Outlook for Mac, new co-authoring tools, Excel's Sparklines, Dynamic Reorder in Word & PowerPoint, and more.

Office Senior Director of Product Management Pat Fox also notes that sales of Office for Mac 2011 since the new version debuted in late October have exceeded the company's internal sales goals so far.

For those who have already decided to purchase the suite or who opt to do so after giving the trial version a test, Amazon offers discounts on all Office packages:

- Office Mac Home Student 2011 - 1 Pack ($99.99)
- Office Mac Home Student Family Pack 2011 ($124.25)

- Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 - 1 Pack ($174.99)
- Office Mac Home Business Multi Pack 2011 ($228.43)

Note: Purchases through these links financially benefit this site.

Pixelmator today announced that the company's photo editing application for Mac [Mac App Store] has grossed $1 million in the 20 days since the store's debut, marking a significant milestone for the already-popular application and over $700,000 for the application's developers after Apple's 30% cut of revenue.

I am ecstatic to announce that Pixelmator grossed a gigantic $1 million on the Mac App Store. And that happened in only 20 short days.

What is even better is that the app is getting rave reviews on the Mac App Store (4.5 stars with over 275 ratings on the US store, 5 stars with over 128 ratings in the UK, and 4.5 stars with over 129 ratings in Germany). And, thanks to the Mac App Store, more people than ever are choosing to download Pixelmator.

Pixelmator currently ranks as the fourth-highest grossing app on the Mac App Store, trailing only Apple's own Aperture, iPhoto, and Pages. The application has been able to combine a relatively high sales price of $29.99 with high-volume sales that currently see the application ranked 12th among paid applications in order to reach the $1 million mark in under three weeks.

While some developers have been worried about a "race to the bottom" when it comes to pricing as has happened in many cases on the iOS App Store, the current list of top grossing apps in the Mac App Store reveals that developers can succeed by offering quality applications at price points significantly higher than those seen for iOS applications. Of the top 20 grossing applications on the Mac App Store, only Angry Birds (#5) and Braid (#16), each checking in at $4.99, carry price points below $14.99.