Laura Bush recently said in an interview that her husband, former US President, George W. Bush, is an "addicted" iPad user.

He reads the Wall Street Journal on it in the morning before the paper even is thrown

Scrabble is the one that George now seems to be playing constantly. Like, I’m trying to get his attention; ‘I’m still here.’

As for Mrs. Bush herself, she currently owns a Kindle, but hopes to get an iPad for her birthday.

Could iPad be the one device that unites people and parties? Let us know in comments!

[Yahoo!]

by George Lim

Former President George W. Bush — addicted to iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Barron’s is reporting that OmniVision will supply the CMOS sensors for two cameras in the next generation iPad 2 — a 5MP camera on the back and a VGA quality camera on the front.

OmniVision (OVTI) will supply CMOS image sensors for a second-generation Apple (AAPL) iPad that will launch in the calendar first quarter of 2011

A second generation iPad 2 would most likely be introduced early 2011, perhaps in April like the original. With cameras would come FaceTime support. Now that Apple has opened up FaceTime to the iPod touch and Mac, we could be looking at a huge surge related to mobile video calling.

In addition, Barron’s went on to suggest that the iPhone could sell up to 23 million units within Q1 2011 based on build orders, and pointed to the increasingly likely Verizon iPhone selling over 6m units alone. This could make the 14.1 million iPhone units last quarter seem rather puny by comparison.

So what about you, do you see yourself using FaceTime on the iPad once the next revision hits the streets? Let us know what you think in the comments!

[Barron's]

by Andrew Wray

iPad 2 to include two cameras, FaceTime [rumor] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker claims that Apple’s record Q3 this year was exactly what it needed to bypass RIM and take over the fourth spot on their list of global mobile phone vendors. Apple is currently still behind, Nokia, Samsung and LG according to a report from Business Wire. Apple has been a dominant force in mobile phones since the introduction of the original iPhone 3 years ago but has never been able to sneak into the top 5 list of global mobile phone vendors. Their arrival into the top 5 knocked out Sony Ericsson devices the first time since IDC started this survey back in 2004.

IDC senior research analyst had some interesting thoughts on this achievement by Apple:

The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms.

Apple has clearly dominated in terms of growth year-over-year as well, shooting up just over 90% while the next closest competitor, RIM, grew just under 46%. Nokia and Samsung are still a considerable amount ahead of Apple as far as market share goes but LG is slowly declining which could allow for Apple to eventually slide into the number 3 position.

[ Market Watch ]

by Brian Tufo

Apple Passes RIM to Become No. 4 Global Mobile Phone Vendor is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Fortune, in an article today describing the long and winding relationship between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, claims they’ve confirmed a Verizon iPhone is coming in “early 2011″.

According to the story, Verizon passed on the iPhone in 2005 because Steve Jobs wanted too much control over where it was sold, too high a cut of service fees, and wanted to take on too much of the customer relationship. When Seidenberg tried to revisit the idea in 2007, just prior to the original iPhone launch, Jobs had concerns about CDMA not being a global standard. 4G LTE plans weren’t enough to jumpstart the discussions back then.

Lowell McAdam, who will succeed Seidenberg at some point next year, contacted Jobs again in late 2007, when AT&T’s network was already suffering under iPhone demand, to make sure they “weren’t missing something,” something which McAdam says Jobs agreed with in principle.

It took until October 2010 for Apple and Verizon to come together at all, and only for iPad 3G + MiFi bundle sales, but it was an important first step. And the iPhone?

people familiar with its development say it is a fait accompli. Verizon, sources say, will sell its own version of the iPhone 4, which will work on Verizon’s CDMA-based 3G network. Unfortunately for globe trotters, the first version of the phone likely won’t be built to work outside the U.S. — it probably won’t carry a special chip that can turn it into a “world phone.” However, it may have some of the features on the iPad distributed in Verizon’s stores, like live TV for customers of the FiOS cable service.

The whole article is worth a read, and also includes a lot about Verizon’s relationship with Google and Eric Schmidt, and their current use of Android as an alternative to iPhone (though in the current quarter it hasn’t brought in anywhere near the amount of net subscribers).

For those keeping score at home, however, we now have Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Fortune on record confirming the iPhone is coming to Verizon. Are you starting to believe?

[Fortune]

Fortune: Verizon iPhone confirmed is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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We’re talking iPhone passing BlackBerry, AT&T vs Verizon, white iPhone delayed… again, greenpois0n vs. limera1n vs. pwnage tool, and the week in apps. It’s team Pure vs. team Jailbreak folks and this is iPhone Live!

Credits

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Our music comes from the following sources:

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iPhone live podcast 123: Team Jailbreak is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple earned more revenue this quarter than their ancient frenemy, Microsoft. Roughly $20 billion to $16 billion, or $4 billion more. Not too long ago they passed Microsoft in market cap as well, another impressive sounding, if not terribly meaningful measure. Microsoft still leads in profit due to their software-centric business being much higher margin than Apple’s hardware-heavy mix. But that too could and just might change as well.

Apple, thanks to the Apple II, got off to an impressive lead in the early days of command line personal computing. But things changed. Apple squandered the Mac’s first mover advantage and Microsoft and Windows ended up ruling the graphical user interface world. Now things are changing again. And that’s where it gets interesting.

60% of Apple’s profits come from products they’ve only released in the last three years, notably iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Almost everything Apple has planned and launched recently has been an incredible success, either profitable in their own right (like hardware) or deliberately run at just above break-even to support those profitable products (like iTunes and the App Store). And they’re still experimenting with new revenue models like iAds in the mobile advertising space.

By contrast, almost all of Microsoft’s profits came from products that have been around a generation, famously Windows and Office. Very little Microsoft has done recently has been a financial success for the company. Even the popular Xbox platform, billion dollar warranty extensions aside, has been a drop in the bucket compared to Windows and Office. Zune HD, a delightfully integrated media player was ultimately ignored and while Windows Phone 7 may bring licensing and Bing-driven advertising revenue, it remains to be seen if it can grab the mindshare Zune never could.

Apple still makes money from Macs but the world is rapidly going mobile and computing is rapidly going mainstream, and with iOS and devices like the iPad, Apple is already a dominant player and has a good shot at remaining a dominant player in the next great phase of computing.

Microsoft doesn’t really make money yet from mobile or internet services (they actually lose an almost incomprehensible amount overall). While they have some time left to turn that around — and to their credit they’re turning faster and better than most people imagined — right now they’re racing to keep up with Apple (and Google) in mobile.

Apple posts higher revenue than Microsoft is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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