Just with every past Apple keynote, Tim Cook began Tuesday’s Let’s talk iPhone event by discussing numbers for devices sold, apps downloaded, percent market share, etc. Let’s take a look at those numbers:

Stores

• 100,000 visitors stopped by on opening weekend of the Shanghai store. It took the LA store to reach that many visitors.
• 357 total stores in 11 countries

Mac

• Six million copies of Lion downloaded so far – 80% more than Snow Leopard
• In comparison with Windows 7 – it took 20 weeks to reach 10% of the Windows install base. It took Lion two weeks.
• The MacBook Pro and the iMac are the number one best selling notebook and desktop in the United States
• Mac platform has grown by 23% since last year (the PC has grown by 4%)
• Approaching 60 million Mac users worldwide
• 23% market share for Apple as of August

iPod

• iPod has 78% of portable music player market share
• Over 300 million iPods have been sold (It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players)
• 45 million iPods sold from July 2010 to June 2011
• 20 million songs on iTunes- twenty times what the service launched with
• 16 billion songs downloaded from iTunes

iPhone

• The iPhone 4 makes up half of the overall iPhone market
• 125 percent growth year-over-year for iPhone sales
• 70% customer satisfaction with iPhone (HTC is second with 49%)
• iPhone is 5% percent of the overall mobile phone market

iPad

• Every state in the US has an iPad deployment program
• 1,000 schools have a 1:1 program
• Over 80% of the hospitals in the US are testing or piloting iPad
• 92% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPads
• #1 tablet in the world – 75% of all tablets sold are iPads

iOS

• More than 250 million devices sold
• #1 mobile operating system – 43% share compared to Android’s 33%

Apps

• More than 500,000 apps in the App Store
• 140,000 iPad specific apps
• 18 billion downloaded apps
• More than 1 billion apps downloaded per month
• Apple has paid out $3 billion to developers

This last statistic is the interesting one to me, because Apple never mentions how much their cut of the app sales is. Well, I did the math for you, and Apple has earned nearly $1.3 billion in app sales. Not too shabby.

Steve Jobs’ funeral is being held today according to The Wall Street Journal, and in keeping with Steve Jobs’ life, it will be a very private affair with no public services. Those wishing to express their sentiments can email rememberingsteve@apple.com.

• Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011
• Remembering Steve Jobs: Statements and stories
• One more thing…: The Mobile Nations staff honors Steve Jobs
• Steve Jobs: TiPb forums thread

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Source: WSJ. Picture credit: Jonathan Mak

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

• HipGeo: Track where you go, take photos, record the world around you, and tell the story about where you’ve been or traveled. [Free for iPhone - App Store link]

• Business Card Reader: Instant business card recognition right on the iPhone. Import contact information from a business card directly to your iPhone address book. Now with native LinkedIn integration! [$4.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

• Songza: Makes it outrageously easy to find just the right playlist. [Free for iPhone - App Store link

• 3-Card Brigade Poker: A smart and addictive card game with rules you already know. Now with Game Center Turn-Based Multiplayer! [Free for iPhone and iPad - App Store link]

• Off to bed!: A bedtime store and celebration of imagination and fantasy in attractive and innovative interactive scenes. [$2.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Some conversations are just too big, or too small, to be held here on the TiPb front page so for anyone wishing to converse with any of us one-to-one, after hours and off the record, here’s where you can find us:

• Rene Ritchie
• Georgia
• Leanna Lofte
• Jeremy Sikora
• Ally Kazmucha
• Chris Oldroyd
• Andrew Wray
• George Lim

Give us a follow, give us shout, and please leave your Twitter handle or Google+ coordinates in the comments so we know where to find you. We’ll raise a virtual glass together.

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As TiPb feared, This Is My Next says AT&T may indeed have plans to seize some competitive advantage over Verizon and Sprint by using a little faux 4G, just as they’ve been doing with Android for a while now.

the carrier is apparently "working with Apple" to change the indicator in theiPhone 4S (which tops out at 14.4Mbps, up from the iPhone 4′s 7.2Mbps) to show "4G" in the status bar as well.

Apple has a history of not allowing carriers to manipulate any aspects of the iPhone so hopefully AT&T won’t get too far with this. Apple themselves don’t even mentioned HSPA+ in their iPhone 4S specs, even though it technically qualifies as HSPA +. Likewise, Apple SVP of marketing, Phil Schiller mentioned during the Lets Talk iPhone keynote that Apple won’t get into the business of determining what’s true 4G and what isn’t.

Given that Verizon and Sprint are only getting the same EV-DO rev A radio speeds as iPhone 4, it’s easy to see why AT&T is pushing so hard. In fact, they’ve even put out a handy infographic to push the point:

Source: This Is My Next, AT&T PR

There were rumors Apple might move to a 3.75 or even 4-inch screen for the 2011 iPhone, but instead iPhone 4S was introduced with the same 3.5-inch screen size Apple has used since 2007. Dustin Curtis thinks it all boils down to what it usually does for Apple — usability.

Touching the upper right corner of the screen on the Galaxy S II using one hand, with its 4.27-inch screen, while you're walking down the street looking at Google Maps, is extremely difficult and frustrating. I pulled out my iPhone 4 to do a quick test, and it turns out that when you hold the iPhone in your left hand and articulate your thumb, you can reach almost exactly to the other side of the screen. This means it's easy to touch any area of the screen while holding the phone in one hand, with your thumb. It is almost impossible to do this on the Galaxy S II.

Basically, Apple treats iPad as a two-handed device, iPhone as a one- or two-handed device.

Source: Dustin Curtis via @justin_horn

Google and Samsung are delaying their CTIA launch event, widely expected to involve the introduction of their next generation Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS, and Nexus Prime handset, in deference to the recent passing of Steve Jobs.

“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.”

Classy.

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Source: Android Central

You’d think after deciding to get an iPhone 4S, figuring out your carrier, and choosing which storage capacity you wanted, you’d be done, right? Well no, you still have a choice of colors — white or black. Given everything else, this might not seem like such a hard choice, but it’s one of the questions we’re getting asked the most often, so let’s give it the once over…

The white and black iPhone 4S are identical in terms of which carriers they work on, which storage capacities they come in, and nearly every physical detail other than color (the white one has some slight cosmetic differences to let the light sensor work, see pictures of the iPhone 4 below by way of example).

There remain, however, some some things to consider.

Is white more distracting?

TV sets usually come in black for a reason — when you’re watching a show or a movie, or playing a game, you want the TV set to disappear, so you can enjoy what you’re doing without noticing a big colored rim around it.

The same goes for iPhone 4S. Some people find having a white faceplate very distracting when they’re watching videos or gaming, and others just don’t like the contrast between the white border and the black screen when the device is off. It’s very “panda”.

Others aren’t bothered by a white border at all and really like the two-tone look of the iPhone when its off.

I’ve had both a black and a white iPhone 4 and have never been distracted nor irked by either one. If white catches your eye a little too much, however, you might want to stick with black.

Will white discolor?

Rumor has it Apple delayed the launch of the white iPhone 4 in order to improve the UV protection and prevent discoloration. That’s just a rumor, however. While the white iPhone 4 has only been on the market about half as long as the black iPhone 4, there haven’t been any widespread accounts of discoloration and my own white iPhone 4 looks as white now as it did the day I bought it.

It will probably take another year to convince everyone that white holds its color fine, but if it’s something that concerns you a lot, you might want to stick with black.

Will white fit in my case?

The white iPhone 4 was 0.2mm thicker than the black iPhone 4, which is well within Apple’s official accessory tolerances. However, not all case makers followed those tolerances so there were some cases that were a little too tight on the white iPhone 4.

We’ll have to wait to measure the white iPhone 4S, but even if it shares that same, tiny, 0.2mm difference, case makers have had months to plan for that and learn to follow the tolerances appropriately.

However, if you insist on using the skinny hipster jean equivalent of an iPhone $S case, and you’re really worried about it, you might want to stick with black.

Does white look better?

Some people just love the look of a white phone, whether it’s iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, or whatever. They often get shipped later or come in more limited quantities so there’s an air of exclusivity about them.

Whatever.

At the end of the day, you need to buy what you like. White tends to stand out more and can be more obvious with brightly colored cases. Is that something that appeals to you?

If you want to be subdued and not so wicked obvious about your phone, you might want to stick with black.

So which color should you get?

At the end of the day, the only real answer is get the color you like better. Everything else is manufactured anxiety at this point. Just close your eyes, picture your iPhone in your hand, and carefully look at what color you’re picturing.

Then buy that.

Any questions?

If you need extra help or want extra opinions deciding whether you should get the black or white iPhone 4S, jump right into our iPhone 4S Forums and ask away!

So you’re getting an iPhone 4S, you’ve chosen the carrier and decided on the storage size, and now you need to figure out the ins and outs of how to sell your old iPhone (or other smartphone) before upgrading? If you don’t want to keep it around as a spare, or as an iPod touch, or hand it down to a family member or friend — if you’re looking to get some cash back — then there are a few things you can do, and a few things you need to know before getting started.

Today we’re going to show you how to cash out the old and bring in the new using a number of great services!

Getting more for your old iPhone

Before you sell your old iPhone, there are a few things you can do to make sure you get the best selling price possible.

1. Jailbreak/Unlock: The iPhone usually sells for more money when it’s jailbroken and especially unlocked, meaning you have the additional options of running restricted apps through Cydia or getting service on another carrier (like T-Mobile in the US, or any international GSM carrier). If you are new to jailbreaking we suggest checking out the jailbreak forums for the best resources.
2. Condition: It kind of goes without saying that you’ll get more money if your device is in better condition, but this counts even more when it comes to the iPhone. If your device is in excellent shape, you’re going to be able to ask for a higher amount. For example, an iPhone 3GS in ‘fair’ condition with wear and tear can get you around $230 while a 3GS in ‘perfect’ cosmetic condition can get you as much as $300. I’ve seen a wide range of pricing on the iPhone 4 and 3GS based on condition, so make sure you research prices and price competitively. (And giving it a good, careful cleaning before you take any photos or send it off is always a good idea.)
3. Wipe your data: Before you end up selling your old iPhone, we highly suggest you run a full data wipe on your device to make sure none of your data is available to the lucky new owner. We’ve done a quick How-To post to help you with the process.

Putting your iPhone up for sale

Now that we’re passed the basics and you’re ready to put your iPhone up for sale, it’s important to weigh all the options you have before making a decision on which service to use.

There are a ton of great online services out there to help you sell your old iPhone and we won’t be able to go through them all, so we’ve filtered down the list of services for you. We’ll start with the most familiar of them all…

eBay

Selling your iPhone on eBay is a pretty simple process. If you’ve ever used eBay for selling things in the past then you know the selling process isn’t all that tricky, however there are still some things to keep in mind when using eBay to sell your iPhone. For instance, eBay charges fees for each auction based on the item you’re selling and how much it sells for, among other things, so here are five quick tips to help you get the most out of your auction:

1. Only ship to the buyer’s confirmed Paypal address if using Paypal.
2. Price competitively if using Buy It Now as an option.
3. Make sure the pictures you use follow your description and are good quality — post pictures of any physical blemishes on the iPhone and be up-front in your description.
4. Use a fast shipping service and make sure you include that in your item description.
5. Use keywords in your title and in your item description to attract more potential buyers.

You may also want to consider insuring your item in case anything goes wrong during shipping. Watch out for low-feedback buyers and also keep in mind that Paypal charges processing fees as well.

Craigslist

Selling on craigslist is locally based, so you’ll be making a face-to-face exchange with someone in your area. I’ve used Craigslist to sell a number of things around the house, and always follow a few basic rules:

• Don’t ever put your personal or home address in an ad. Ever!
• I’m usually fine with putting my personal phone number in an ad, but that’s up to you. Some find it easier to text rather than email.
• Meet in a public place, preferably in the daytime.
• Watch out for email scams, something Craigslist is notorious for.

It’s always a good idea to use caution when dealing with Craigslist. I’ve heard some pretty crazy stories of people getting robbed or worse when meeting with people for a transaction, so bring a friend and meet in an open, public area to avoid those types of situations.

Gazelle

Gazelle offers a service that lets you easily turn most electronic devices into cash. Simply send in your iPhone and Gazelle will send you money after confirming the item condition. The first thing you’ll need to do is tell Gazelle what you’re selling and what condition the item is in. You can choose from poor, fair, good or excellent condition, and it’s important to be honest when rating the condition so there’s no hiccups or snags along the way. It also helps if you have the box and original documentation and cables with your item, and the service will check for any water damages before giving you a quote.

An average-conditioned 16gb iPhone 4 will currently grab you about $215 where a perfect-conditioned iPhone 4 will get you as much as $250. The process takes about a week, and although you’re not getting as much money in the end it’s a great service if you don’t want to deal with a lot of hassle. You can have your payment delivered through Paypal among other methods, and you can also submit multiple items if you’re looking to get rid of a few more things while you’re at it.

SellYourMac.com

SellYourMac.com offers a similar service to Gazelle by letting you send in your old iPhone for payment with little to no hassle involved. In a nutshell, they’ll buy your old Mac or iOS device. You’re required to provide pictures along with a serial number next to your item description and condition. Once SellYourMac.com receives your iPhone they clean it, inspect it and verify that it’s in working condition before they turn around and sell it on eBay. Users can receive payment via Paypal and SellYourMac.com even says they give higher quotes than competing services like Gazelle, so you’ll definitely want to compare before making any final decisions.

Apple Recycle Program

If selling your old iPhone on any of the services mentioned above doesn’t sound appealing, Apple has set up a new iPod and Mobile Phone Recycling Program. As of this writing, Apple will give up to $200 for your used perfect-conditioned 32GB White iPhone 4 in the form of an Apple Gift card, which you can then turn around and use to purchase the iPhone 4S. In this case, you’re basically getting the iPhone 4S at no charge (with a 2-year contract, of course). If you have a black model, they’ll give you up to $180.

Apple is even including the iPhone 3GS in the Recycle Program, giving a $105 gift card if your 3GS is in perfect condition. They also offer to give you a new 8GB model of the same iPhone to swap out provided you sign a 2-year contract.

Personal transactions

Just because all these online services are available, it doesn’t mean you can’t still sell your old iPhone the old fashioned way — person to person, likely to a friend or acquaintance. Just be sure to follow all the tips suggested above, and remember that accessories like Square can even let you take credit cards right on your own device now, if cash isn’t as convenient.

Bonus tip

Include all packaging, cables and adapters if possible. If you have any extra cases or accessories you want to throw in the deal it can usually net you a higher selling price as a bundle instead of trying to sell them individually.

Any questions?

Whether it’s eBay, Criagslist or any other method for selling your old iPhone we hope this article will help you along the way. As always, let us know if you have any questions or additional suggestions in the comments below!

You can also check out our Marketplace Forum for more iPhone buying/selling action.

So you know you’re getting an iPhone 4S, and you’ve chosen which carrier to get it on, now you need to decide which storage capacity you wish — 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB?

No problem. Let’s break it down, shall we?

It would be nice if we could just walk into the Apple store, find a demo iPhone 4S, and say “Siri, based on my exact needs, which size iPhone 4S should I get?” but sadly even Siri isn’t that artificially intelligent… yet. There are a few things we can look at, however, to help decide.

Price for storage

The current US prices for iPhone 4, with full carrier subsidies are:

• 16GB: $199 or $12.44 a GB
• 32GB: $299 or $9.34 a GB
• 64GB: $399 or $6.23 a GB

It looks like you can pay 2x the price for 4x the storage, a pretty sweet deal, but it doesn’t really work out like that. After $199, Apple is basically getting you to pay a $100 premium for an addition 16GB of storage (check out how much a 16GB SD card or thumb drive costs by way of comparison). The $200 premium for an additional 48GB of storage is more interesting if only because the double density NAND Flash Apple is using to reach that size is probably a bit more expensive for them. But $200 more expensive? (Hey, that’s where Apple’s fat margins come from.)

So if you’re looking at this purely from a “how can I pay Apple as little as possible” perspective, the baseline 16GB model is usually the way to go. Of course, there are a lot of other factors to consider.

iCloud

iCloud promises to give us all unlimited online storage for iTunes purchased content — iBooks, music, movies, TV shows, and apps, and 5GB of additional storage for backups, data, etc. You can also purchase more iCloud storage for the following yearly fees:

• 10GB: $20/year
• 20GB: $40/year
• 50GB: $100/year

This might make it tempting to save some $$$ up front on onboard storage and make up for it with the free 5GB iCloud, with the option to buy more storage as a safety blanket.

It’s not a crazy idea but it’s important to remember that online storage isn’t always as available, fast, and convenient as onboard storage. For example, you can’t just play a movie from iCloud, you have to download it at the same time you watch it, which means you have to have enough space available on your iPhone 4S to handle the download. If you want to watch a lot of movies, you may have to watch, delete, watch, delete, over and over again.

iCloud isn’t as open as things like Dropbox, so you can only really store what Apple lets you. If your movies and videos don’t come from iTunes, that’s an important consideration. Also, in our tests iCloud’s free 5GB could get filled up pretty quickly by photos and especially videos.

Bottom line, iCloud means you can get away with managing more content on your device, but you still want to have enough local storage for what you need, when you need it.

8mp photos and 1080p video

iPhone 4S can take 8 megapixel photos and shoot 1080p video and those can be some big files. Justin Horn of When Will Apple did the math on the videos and worked out:

iPhone 4S 1080p video takes up about 2.5 times as much space as the iPhone 4. So using a more moderate estimate of keeping 60 minutes of video on your camera roll you are looking at 10.4 GB of storage vs 4.6 GB for the iPhone 4, so that can add up quick.

I take a ton of photos and videos on my iPhone 4 16GB and run out of space all the time. It’s a pain in the butt to have to go through and figure out what to delete if I’m not near my computer and can’t sync stuff of, so if you’re really into the camera, that’s something you need to consider.

Content

The other thing that can fill up our iPhone quickly is content.

• Games can be big, and with iPhone 4S’ Apple A5 processor, we might see even bigger ones with more textures and richer environments. Infinity Blade is 600MB, for example. How big will Infinity Blade 2 be?

• iTunes movies can be 1-3GB in size for SD depending on the length. If you prefer watching HD, they can be 3-5GB.

• iTunes TV shows can be a quarter to half the size of movies, but more than make up for it by the number of episodes typically available.

• If you get your movies and TV shows from somewhere other than iTunes, you’re still looking at about 400MB an hour for SD and over 1GB (sometimes way over) an hour for HD.

• Music files are generally quite small but can add up as well, especially if you have lots and lots of albums you want to keep with you everywhere.

Who should get 16GB

If you don’t use a lot of apps, if you don’t want to have a lot of movies and TV shows, or a huge amount of music, if you don’t intend to shoot and keep very much 8mp photos or 1080p video on your iPhone, you’ll probably be okay with 16GB.

Some people like to keep their iPhones light and do all their gaming and media on their iPad, and some people manage their photos and videos very well, transferring them to their computers regularly and reliably.

If you keep your iPhone lean, you can probably save yourself some cash and get by on 16GB.

Who should get 32GB

If the iPhone is your primary device, if you play games on it and watch movies and TV shows on it, if you have a decent sized music collection you want to keep with you, and if you shoot an average amount of photos and videos, 32GB is probably your sweet spot.

Some people like to have one device that, while it doesn’t do everything all the time, it’s capable enough to do most things most of the time. As long as there’s some extra space to give extra time to managing apps and content, like Goldilocks it feels just right.

If you do a fair but not overwhelming amount of stuff on your iPhone, your probably better off going for 32GB.

Who should get 64GB

If you’re a power user who wants to keep as much as possible for as long as possible, if you have a large amount of apps and games, TV and movies, and a huge music collection you simply have to have with you all the time, or you shoot photos and video almost non stop and don’t want to have to bother transferring it all the time… we’ll, you’ve probably been waiting for a 64GB option for a while now!

Some people really do want their iPhone to do everything, all of the time, and never (or rarely) have to worry about running out of space. They probably want 128GB — or even 256GB if they could get it! — but they’ll use the most they can, whenever they can.

If you really feel like you need it, you probably didn’t need me to tell you so, and you’ve already decided you’re getting 64GB. Enjoy!

What if you choose the wrong size?

Remember, in most places you have time to try out your new iPhone 4S and return it if you don’t like it. Make sure, as soon as possible, you put your iPhone 4S to realistic use. Load up all the apps and games you want with you, load up your movies and TV shows, go out and take some photos and shoot some video. Give it a complete and thorough workout and see.

If it feels like you got too much storage, say 64GB and you haven’t even gone past 2GB, or if you got too little, say you’re already at 15GB of 16GB, then take your iPhone 4S back and exchange it for one that better suits your needs.

If you come to this realization too late, after the exchange period is over, remember you can buy additional iCloud storage, or look at other options like Dropbox which will let you keep your stuff available online and potentially free up some much needed space on your iPhone.

Any questions?

If you’re still not sure, hit up our iPhone 4S Forums to get the help you need to make up your mind.