Apple has just released iTunes 10.1.2, a minor point update that claims to provide “a number of important stability and performance improvements.” Unless they’re planning to update it again in the next few weeks, might it not also include support for the Verizon iPhone and iOS 4.3?

Once you’ve installed it let us know if you see anything else new!

UPDATE: Sure enough, eagle eyed readers point out CDMA iPhone 4 compatibility is mentioned in the release notes. Why not just say Verizon iPhone 4, hmmm?

Apple releases iTunes 10.1.2, compatible with CDMA/Verizon iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The BBC iPlayer mobile app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is finally close to being released according to a report by Paid Content. The app was announced twelve months ago but needed the approval of the BBC Trust which was granted six months ago. The report suggest that the app will be released by the end of next month, coinciding with the departure of Erik Huggers, the BBC's future media and technology director; who is leaving to join Intel.

BBC iPlayer is a free service in the UK that lets you catch up with programmes from the past seven days that you may have missed or want to watch again. iPlayer is accessible now via iOS devices through the mobile web version and it does work reasonably well.  Mobile users only account for four percent of iPlayer visitors; so an improved experience and an App Store presence will surely help to expand mobile usage.

The app will only be available in the UK but BBC Worldwide is planning a subscription based service, with content for other countries.

[paidContent:UK]

BBC iPlayer app finally getting close to release is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Both Apple and News Corp have sent out invitations to an event on February 2nd where News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch will be joined by Apple iTunes, App Store, and Internet VP Eddy Cue to launch “The Daily”, the long-rumored iPad-only digital newspaper.

The Daily is expected to rely on a new iTunes-based subscription service rumored to be included in iOS 4.3 firmware. Apple released the first iOS 4.3 beta back on January 12th, with beta 2 seeded to devs just a week later — indicating Apple was on a quicker beta release schedule than normal. So with that in mind, is it possible we could see iOS 4.3 released following the event?

With The Daily now on track for an early February launch, do you think this could help get the newspaper industry back on its feet? Sound off in the comments below!

[The Loop]

News Corp and Apple holding “The Daily” iPad newspaper launch on Feb. 2nd is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Mobi Products Metal Back Case for iPhone 4

If you want to really bling out your iPhone 4 than check out the radial metallic finish on the Mobi Products Metal Back Case. Black, red, silver, or pink this incredibly inexpensive case offers protection and eye-catching style. On sale right now for just $9.95!

Shop Mobi Products Metal Back Case for iPhone…

Mobi Products Metal Back Case for iPhone 4 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Bloomberg has a profile up on Larry Page’s Google 3.0 and it highlights how Google and Apple may have gone from sweethearts who shared the original iPhone introductory stage to bitter rivals in the smartphone space:

[Google VP Vic] Gundotra has also sparred with Apple behind the scenes. As Android became a threat to Apple in 2008, Apple began resisting Google’s claim to valuable location data gathered whenever an iPhone owner used Google Maps. His negotiations with Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller grew so heated that Schmidt and Steve Jobs had to intervene to settle the matter, according to two people familiar with the incident. (Apple announced earlier this year that it had developed its own location-monitoring system. Gundotra and Schiller both declined to comment on the incident.)

9to5Mac’s (and Fortune’s Google blogger) Seth Weintraub adds:

The other turning point was the release of the G1 which "looked nothing like the prototypes that Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall were shown by Google's leadership".

Those Android prototypes looked like and were targeted at front-facing QWERTY BlackBerry and WindowsMobile phones (see the picture at the top of the post) and shown during a time when Google’s then-CEO, Eric Schmidt sat on Apple’s board of directors. The G1 looked and worked much more like the full, capacitive screen iPhone.

Google is now on its way to being the most popular OS in mobile and have just begun previewing their latest, tablet and large-screen release. (See Android Central’s complete Android 3.0 Honeycomb walkthrough.)

Now that Larry Page is back in command of Google actual however, could we see any mending of the Apple fences?

[Bloomberg via 9to5mac]

How Google and Apple turned from love to hate? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Tired of the plastic or aluminum hardware remote and wishing you could control your Apple TV or iTunes on your Windows or Mac PC with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad? Well thanks to Apple’s Remote app, you can. We’ll show you how after the break!

Apple’s Remote app is free on the App Store and it works through over your local Wi-Fi network. It is much more powerful than a hardware remote, especially for entering text like passwords or search terms.

Getting Apple’s Remote App

1. Download Remote for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch [iTunes Link]
2. Open the Remote app on your device
3. Switch on Home Sharing on iTunes on your Windows or Mac PC
4. Put in your Apple ID and Password (These are the same as your iTunes Account info, and yes it’s annoying you can’t use your iPhone or iPad to put in this information!)
5. Once you get confirmation for iTunes and Apple TV tap done
6. You’ll see a list of available Apple TVs and iTunes libraries (for example, your laptop and desktop might both be available via Home Sharing). Tap the one you want to control.

Bonus tip: There are other remote apps available in the App Store, for example for controlling VLC, Boxee, XBMC, and other media centers and audio/video apps as well.

Now enjoy! If you have any questions or have any other tips for controlling your Apple TV, iTunes, or Media Center libraries let us know in the comments!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Daily Tip: Control Apple TV, iTunes with your iPhone or iPad using Remote app is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Still surprising if not a surprise, Sony has made the decoupling their PlayStation games from PlayStation hardware — like the new PSP2/NGP — official with the launch of PlayStation Suite. Android is the only other platform targeted right now (which makes sense given Sony Ericsson’s Android phone investment) but could the 160 million install base strong iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad iOS platform come online in the future?

Hey, Verizon is getting the iPhone so anything can happen, right? Still, with Apple maintaining tight control of the App Store they and Sony would probably have to come to a special licensing and development deal to get the same type of PlayStation content onto iOS. It wouldn’t be as easy as Android and likely webOS would. Sony could always develop/port iOS-specific versions of their titles but that would take more effort on their part, even with 160 million reasons to do it.

Sony also announced their next generation portable (NGP), aka the PSP2 and it’s a monster in every sense of the word. If you thought the rumored Apple A5 chip was hot, this thing is on fire with a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 and quad-core PowerVR SGX543 chipset (they claim it’s close to PS3 in terms of power). No word on what kind of battery that will require to deliver significant online gaming life. The 5-inch OLED display is 960×544 (close to iPhone 4’s 960×640 but at a much larger size) and touch sensitive. It’s got at the 3Gs and Wi-Fis, as well as a touch-sensitive area on the back of the device so you can swipe without obscuring the display. Dual cameras, dual analog thumbsticks and the usual PS controls round out the input methods. It’s also got a new interface that they claim is more social but — at least so far — doesn’t look as clean or consistent as the old crossbar. Sony does say it will be ready for a holiday 2011 release which will put it up against iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, and iPad 2 (with iPad 3 on its way).

Both Sony and Nintendo have been losing mobile gaming share to iOS over the least couple years, will hardware like the PSP2 and software like PlayStation suite start turning that tide?

[Android Central, Engadget]

Sony announces touch-friendly PSP2 (NGP) and PlayStation Suite — could it come to iPhone and iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

AT&T has just reported their Q4 2010 financial results and it included another 4.1 million iPhone activations.

More than 7.4 million postpaid integrated devices were sold in the fourth quarter, including the second-largest quarterly number of upgrades in the company’s history. Integrated device sales included 4.1 million iPhone activations. More than 80 percent of postpaid sales were integrated devices. (Integrated devices are handsets with QWERTY or virtual keyboards in addition to voice functionality and are a key driver of wireless data usage.)

At the end of the quarter, 61.0 percent of AT&T’s 68.0 million postpaid subscribers had integrated devices, up from 46.8 percent a year earlier. The average ARPU for integrated devices on AT&T’s network is 1.7 times that of the company’s non-integrated device base. More than 80 percent of integrated device subscribers are on FamilyTalk and/or business discount plans. Churn levels for these subscribers are significantly lower than for other postpaid subscribers.

AT&T didn’t break out iPad 3G numbers specifically but taken together with Android-based tablets, they added 442,000 devices to their network.

Since Apple sold 16.24 million iPhones during the same period, AT&T’s 4.1 million show the international growth Apple mentioned during their own quarterly results. Apple sold 7.33 million iPads last quarter, though no doubt many of those were Wi-Fi only models.

What if anything changes when the Verizon iPhone launches on February 10 won’t be reflected until AT&T’s Q1 (partial exclusivity) or Q2 numbers are in.

[AT&T]

AT&T activated 4.1 million iPhones last quarter is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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China Mobile Chairman, Wang Jianzhou, was quoted yesterday saying that Apple will support next-gen TD-LTE.

These two years we have been discussing the issue. Right now the situation is moving forward. Apple has made it clear they will support TD-LTE.

China Mobile, has been negotiating with Apple for years, to develop a TD-SCDMA supported iPhone for their current 3G network, and TD-LTE for their future 4G network.

China Mobile hasn’t signed a deal with Apple yet because Apple doesn’t currently support TD-SCDMA, which China Mobile use for their 3G network, but with Apple’s new CDMA phone for Verizon, Wang hopes that Apple will consider supporting TD-SCDMA.

We hope that when they develop the next-generation models, since Apple can create CDMA, they can also consider developing TD-SCDMA.

The iPhone is currently only available in China on China Unicom, which lacks the subscriber base that China Mobile has.

Given the size of the Chinese market and Apple’s huge growth there over the last few quarters, any chance Apple might support LTE sooner than we think?

[Reuters]

Apple to support TD-LTE says China Mobile's Chairman. is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

According to an email MacRumors received from Verizon, existing customers will get their long awaited chance to pre-order the iPhone 4 on February 3rd at 3am EST. This is a full week before people who are waiting to switch to Verizon will be able to get their hands on an iPhone 4. Verizon also listed some simple steps for current customers to take to ensure they will be able to place their pre-order on time. Make sure you get your orders in as soon as you can because once their stock has depleted you will have to wait until February 10th just like everyone else.

• 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…myaccount.verizonwireless.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).

Verizon is further enticing AT&T customers by offering a trade-in program for current iPhone owners. It is unclear if the trade-in policy will be made available to all customers or only corporate customers but it couldn’t hurt to give your Verizon representative a call to find out. The trade in prices for AT&T iPhones are:

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

So pre-existing Verizon customers get ready for what could be a chaotic night as lots of people will almost certainly be sitting by their computers at 3am on February 3rd. AT&T customers who are planning on making the switch, will you be trading in your iPhone or will you sell it on your own for probably more money than Verizon is offering? We want to know what your plans are come February 3rd!

[ MacRumors ]

Verizon iPhone pre-orders start at 3am EST February 3 + Trade in your AT&T iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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