According to the Wall Street Journal, CBS (and CW) and Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ABC Family) and considering Apple’s (unannounced yet previously rumored) subscription TV service. To throw nebulous fuel on the imaginary fire, the WSJ adds:

The proposed service by the maker of iPhones and iPod music players could, in at least some scenarios, offer access to some TV shows from a selection of major U.S. television networks for a monthly fee, according to people familiar with the discussions. Apple is pushing to complete licensing deals and hopes to introduce the service in 2010, some of those people said. It is unclear whether any networks have signed on yet.

No names, no networks, but is there a story? Maybe. The mere idea of Apple doing for digital television what they did for digital music — rip it from the hands of old, unresponsive media companies and give it to consumers in an easy, a la carte form — is compelling enough to account for some of the chatter.

Hey, even in Canada where I have $20 for 20 a la carte channels already from my local cable company, their horrible PVR boxes, lack of channels, and the idea that offering $5 for the first 3 episodes of the original 90210 is “on-demand TV”, the idea of Apple offering a real Apple TV makes me giddy.

And Disney always makes sense to mention as an early Apple partner, seeing as how Steve Jobs is their biggest shareholder and a member of their board of directors… But as much as I want to believe it, as much as it may even be true, there’s nothing to say it really is yet. Though that doesn’t mean a good dose of mythical iTablet wouldn’t help:

Apple is revamping iTunes as it finalizes its plans for a tablet device, which is meant to be a multimedia gadget, according to people briefed about the product. The multimedia tablet is expected to be larger than an iPhone but smaller than a laptop computer. People briefed by Apple say the company is aiming to launch it by the end of March.

Alrighty then. You want?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

CBS, Disney, Considering Unannounced Apple iTunes Subscription TV Service

Making our collective jaws drop today is Tapulous, who are claiming sales approaching $1,000,000 (that’s on million) dollars a month, and news that even those inside and around Apple had no conception of just how successful the iPhone app ecosystem would be.

First, Reuters reports that Tap Tap Revenge maker Tapulous, a 20-person iPhone development team, has seen 20 million installs and 600 millions games played, adding up to sales approaching $1 million a month.

Tapulous’ chief executive said he expects it to ride a wave of exponential growth in mobile app commerce in the next two years, similar to that seen recently by social gaming companies like Zynga, Playfish and Playdom. Playfish was recently acquired by Electronic Arts for $275 million in cash.

Second, the Financial Times reports that even insiders weren’t expecting this level of success. Says Kleiner Perkins partner Matt Murphy, manager of the then $100m iFund announced alongside the original iPhone SDK:

“We had no idea there would be 2bn downloads by October. Most people within Apple, if you had told them it would be a fifth of that by now, they would have been pretty happy.”

Part of this is attributed to Steve Jobs, of course:

Even more important was Mr Jobs' willingness to demand that AT&T and other network carriers give up control over what sorts of programmes could operate over their airwaves. He argued that the iPhone was a computer, not a phone, and that consumers expected to be able to do many things with computers. History had shown that this kind of freedom was what drove the more profitable "ecosystems" of computers – where sales of hardware were dependent on a wide variety of useable software.

So, remove the carriers, treat smartphones like real, mobile computing platforms, and everyone (mostly) benefits? Who could have imagined that?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Tapulous Making $1 Million a Month in App Store, Even Apple Didn’t Expect App Store Success

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this holiday-centric week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Christmas C@rds

Christmas C@rds is a fun little app that can take a bit of hassle out of holiday cards and make it fun on your iPhone. This app comes with more than 30 templates you can customize with colors, text and your own picture! If I wasn’t married, I would go this route for my holiday cards, but the Mrs. put a stop to that. If you are in a pinch and need some great looking, fun eCards, you can’t go wrong with Christmas C@rds! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Dr. Seuss Camera Grinch Edition

I was trying out a few holiday themed apps this week, and my pick of the week is the Dr. Seuss Camera. With this app, you can take a photograph with your iPhone, and super-impose a “Grinch” scene on it to give it a holiday vibe – pretty similar to many of the other “insert your face in a scene” type of apps. From simply putting someone’s face on the Grinch’s body to creating more of a Christmas card type of image, there are 23 difference scenes to choose from. It’s a fun way to add a little holiday cheer to your images! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: Crazy Snowboard – Holiday Special

Crazy Snowboard is a very fun snowboard app that has many fun levels to play, What I love about Crazy Snowboard is that the developer has updated the app just for Christmas and all the levels are christmas themed![$2.99 - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition

With all of the Holiday stress of finding gifts and busy shopping malls, my holiday pick is Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition. Whether it is removing candy canes from a generic elf or taping back together a reindeer, this game is a stress reliever. [Free - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: Elf

Elf is a very simple, yet highly addictive game. The objective is to simply is to collect stars and candy canes to make your Elf fly, glide, and jump as high as he can. Toss in the Christmas touch and you have yourself a $.99 holiday time killer. [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: ?

“sniffle Bah, Humbug! sneeze Get off my snowless lawn!”

Matt’s Pick: Christmas Camera

Christmas Camera ™ is a pretty cool application that allows you to take photos of people and overlay different themes or a Santa hat on top of the image – creating one whole Christmas themed photo. The app has numerous different themes as well as a Santa hat and photo frames. Had a bit of fun updating several of my friends photos! [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Ramp Champ’s Holiday Giveaway

Ramp Champ is skeetball done beautiful and in-app purchase done right, and what’s righter than a free for the holidays? If you’ve already got Ramp Champ, just jump into the extras, download your free gift level, and flick the yule out of them elves and reindeer. And if you haven’t, get Ramp Champ first, then get the free level! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Christmas C@rds, Dr. Seuss Camera Grinch Edition, Crazy Snowboard – Holiday Special, Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition, Elf, Christmas Camera, Ramp Champ – TiPb Picks of the Holiday Week

Week 2 of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin sees me take on TiPb’s Public Frenemy #1, the almost-diametrically opposed BlackBerry — or is it? This year in addition to the new flagship BlackBerry Bold 9700, we officially have an actual touch-screen ‘Berry in the ‘Robin — the Storm2. What’s an iPhone blogger to do?

Lucky for me, I have the world’s foremost BlackBerry lover in my corner, CrackBerry Kevin Michaluk himself, and as if that weren’t enough, I’ve enlisted the million-strong CrackBerry Nation to help me out as well!

Remember, every day you post on my CrackBerry Forums thread, you’re entered for a chance to win the BlackBerry of your choice. (And there’s a total of 6 smartphones up for grabs — one per SPE site — so check them all out!)

Now grab your hotdogs, popcorn, and spicy drink, because after the break CrackBerry Kevin gives me a guided tour of the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Storm 2, and everything new in hardware and BlackBerry OS 5.0.

[YouTube Video link]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

BlackBerry Bold 9700, Storm2 Hands-on Video, Smartphone Round Robin

Last Minute Shopping at TiPb iPhone Accesory Store

There’s still time to get your order in at TiPb’s iPhone Accessory Store and receive your iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, or iPhone 3GS gear before Christmas. Last minute shopping has never been easier if you’re hunting for an iPhone fan.

Today: order before 4pm Eastern and choose 2-Day or Next-Day Air.

Tomorrow: you can still choose Next-Day Air as long as you order before 4pm Eastern.

If you’re not sure what to get that special iSomeone, we have our complete TiPb store Holiday Gift Guide, and Top 5 Must-Have iPhone Accessories for New Users ready to help you out.

Shop now!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Last Minute Shopping at TiPb iPhone Accesory Store

Apple has released a new iPhone app called iTunes 12 Days of Christmas [Free - iTunes link] that provides push notifications for a FREE iTunes gift every day from December 26 to January 7 — but the catch is (for right now at least) you have to have a UK, Portuguese, etc. App Store account.

That’s right, iTunes 12 Days of Christmas isn’t showing up in the US or Canadian App Store yet. Whether it’s a promotion specific to certain European countries, or whether Apple needs to figure out licensing for different regions before rolling it out, it’s Joy to the Euro, bah-humbug for North America for now.

If you see it in your local App Store, let us know and enjoy your freebies. (And be sure to tell us whether the freebies are naughty or nice).

[Thanks to Pedro for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

European App Stores Get Apple’s iTunes 12 Days of [Free Stuff for] Christmas App

A “corporate event” scheduled for Monday, June 28 to Friday, July 2, 2010 has set the internet speculation level to red, as it sounds like the only Moscone Center reservation capable of being next year’s Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) — the event whose keynote has for the last two years featured the introduction of new iPhone hardware.

In 2008 Steve Jobs held up the iPhone 3G (1,2). In 2009 Phil Schiller showed off the iPhone 3GS (2,1). Jobs is back, 4th generation iPhone (3,1) rumors are progressing right on schedule, so… Yeah, we’re excited. (And who knows, maybe an iTablet won’t be as mythical by then either?)

Apple officially announced WWDC dates in March. Apple also typically holds iPhone Software Sneak Preview Events in March. We’re just saying… 2010 is almost here. Bring the future!

[via 9to5mac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

WWDC 2010 — Home of New iPhone Introductions — Kicks off June 28?

Here, above, are the full plans available for Vodafone’s iPhone, release date just announced as January 14, 2010… and still no price war. Of course that stands to reason as the iPhone costs every carrier pretty much the same thing in terms of hardware and network usage, but we still hoped one crazy UK telco or another would decide to go for it.

Handset costs start at £59 for the iPhone 3G, £149 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS, and £239 for the 32GB iPhone 3GS but go down to free with more expensive plans on 24-month contract. Data usage stays pegged at 1GB no matter how much you pay, however. Minutes go from 300 to 3000, texts start at 3000 and stay there.

Interestingly, the last row shows tethering as an option, £5 for 500MB, £10 for 1.5 (it says MB, we’re guessing its a typo for GB), and £15 for 3GB.

So that’s O2, Orange, O2 reseller Tesco, 3 rumored, and Vodafone now launching, anyone getting (or moving over to) a new iPhone carrier for the new year?

[Thanks tipster!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Hits Vodafone UK January 14 — TiPb’s Got Your Plan Info

Week one of the Smartphone Round Robin is over and week two begins tomorrow. We’ve just scratched the surface here and already we’ve run the gamut from a Windows Mobile user examining webOS to a BlackBerry user having an encounter with the Droid. If you have a Smartphone need, we’re pretty confident that the Round Robin will help you find out how to fill it.

We could go on, but there’s egg nog to be spiked and presents to be wrapped, so hit up the updates page for a list of reviews by platform and hit this post up after the break for the best of Smartphone Experts this week.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Best of Smartphone Experts, 20 Dec 2009

AT&T contacted TiPb with a statement refuting claims that their capital expenditures, specifically their investment in wireless infrastructure, has decreased while at the same time their data revenue is increasing.

To quickly recap, the claim about infrastructure investment falling as data profits rose was one of the most direct charges leveled by Newsweek’s Daniel Lyons (writing as Fake Steve) as part of his Operation Chokehold series, and repeated several times on TiPb and other sites.

In the statement (reprinted in it’s entirety below) AT&T claims they’ve increased network investment in 2009, and are taking other steps (like rolling out the 850 MHz band) to improve customer experience.

Remaining unaddressed: the actual cause of the iPhone-on-AT&T problem(s) in cities like New York and San Francisco, given that international users on other carriers do not report the same issues. Granted, AT&T users in those or other affected areas may not care why it’s broken. However, they likely do care deeply that it gets fixed and soon. (And so should AT&T given the increasing level of mainstream attention).

So, read the response below and then let us know what you think.

The metric you use in the phrase "While AT&T was content to increase data revenue while decreasing infrastructure investment all in the name of shareholder value" has been seen in a number of posts recently. However, it captures overall corporate capital expenditures for AT&T, which includes wireline investment as well as a number of items that are not directly linked to network investment (or performance) – including real estate, call centers and IT support. There is no way to calculate or even infer what our network investment is for any given period using those capex numbers. While we don’t break capex down to the level of network investment for competitive reasons, based on expectations for the full-year 2009, we anticipate that our wireless network investment will increase significantly compared with 2007 levels. And wireless capex increased significantly from 2007 to 2008.

Here's a look at how we're spending what's expected to be between $17 and $18 billion in improvements in 2009 to our wireline and wireless networks, with billions on wireless:

• We are nearly doubling the wireless spectrum serving 3G customers in hundreds of markets across the country, using high-quality 850 MHz spectrum. This additional spectrum expands overall network capacity and improves in-building reception.
• We are adding about 2,000 new cell sites to our network in 2009, expanding service to new cities and improving coverage in other areas.
• We're adding about 100,000 new backhaul connections, which add critical capacity between cell sites and the global IP backbone network.
• We're enabling widespread access to our Wi-Fi network – the largest in the country with more than 20,000 hotspots in all 50 states – allowing customers to take advantage of the best available AT&T mobile broadband connection.
• We're rolling out even faster 3G speeds with deployment of HSPA 7.2 technology and are preparing for field trials of next generation, LTE wireless networks next year, with deployment planning to begin in 2011. This schedule aligns with industry expectations for when a wide variety of compatible 4G wireless devices should be available.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

AT&T Says Infrastructure Spending is NOT the Reason for iPhone Connection Problems