For reasons unknown to me, the majority of the public is suddenly interested in books again, and Apple has finally revealed a way for emo kids the world over to publish their crappy poetry, ripe for the crying over, on the iPad. It’s totally cool that the iBookstore finally does for books what iTunes has always done for musicians, and the App Store for developers, but the process seems a little cumbersome. Simply register a valid US tax ID, convert your Word and InDesign files into ePub format, verify said ePub format files, and apply for an ISBN. If all that checks out, you’re on your way! Golly! Naturally,…

Imagine a city with stores that look like jail cells, dark alleys with no end in sight, graffiti written all over the walls, and thugs on every street corner. This city is the open web, containing Google, Yahoo, Craigslist, eBay, Paypal, and others. Now imagine a city with multi-million dollar mansions, paved streets with clean sidewalks, beautiful parks with freshly-cut grass, and happy people enjoying every second of life. This is Apple’s ecosystem, led by the iPhone, iPad, and iTunes. That’s a pretty drastic comparison, wouldn’t you say? Well, this is how Virginia Heffernan of The New York…

Apple’s iTunes music store controls a dominant share of the US digital music market with a 28 percent share of all music sold and 70 percent of all digital downloads. The NDP Group, a New York based market research firm, released its findings that iTunes’ share of retail digital download business in the US has increased by one percentage point since last year’s numbers to 70 percent. Both Walmart and Amazon hold the second place spot taking a 12 percent share of the total market for digital music and physical media sales. Amazon has increased its music market share by three percentage points,…

Mozilla is attempting to make inputting URLs on your iPhone a thing of the past with its new application, Firefox Home. The app was confirmed this morning on Mozilla’s Official blog. The group has confirmed that they have been working on an application for the iPhone, basing it on the Firefox Sync (formerly Weave Sync) technology. Firefox Home will give most iPhone users instant access to their Firefox history, bookmarks, and the tabs from their most recent browser session. Also, it will provide users with Firefox’s “Awesome Bar” capability, which will allow users to input their favorite…

THAT JUST HAPPENED. No really, it did. In trading today, Apple eclipsed Microsoft’s total market capitalization value for the first time ever. Apple stock was trading earlier today for $247.62, giving Apple a total value of $225.57 billion. Its rival, Microsoft, was trading at $25.38 with a total market cap of $223.83 billion. This marks the first time that Apple’s market capitalization value has trumped Microsoft’s. Source: CBC Money…

There have been many rumors and leaks surfacing over the past few months leading up to the launch of the iPhone 4G. Well, there is another little snippet of info for fanboys, and this time it comes straight from the source. In an interview with Digitimes, Apple’s senior analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Apple has two next generation iPhones in development; one of these phones being the iPhone 4 prototype whose pictures were released prematurely on Gizmodo, the other being a less updated version to play backup to the latter. “Apple actually has another product codenamed N91 for the project,…

We have lift-off. After months of drooling over leaked prototype photos and speculating on what the new features will be, Boy Genius Report reported today that the new iPhone 4G will launch and be ready for purchase in early June. July was its expected arrival date prior to the announcement. Many iPhone hopefuls have been eagerly awaiting the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7 to find out the dates for the launch and to find out more about iPhone 4. Early projections are showing that Apple is expected to shift 24 million units of the iPhone 4G before the end of the year. Source: 9to5Mac, BGR…

Wired has finally released an iPad-friendly version of its magazine (iTunes link), and early indications are that it’s pretty damn good. There was a brief snafu where Condé Nast worked with Adobe to build the prototype application using AIR, an Adobe framework which is banned from Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Now the app has been rejigged, and Wired has released its first ever digital edition of their printed magazine. Advertisers have been offered premium spots in the digital app, allowing interaction and animation. Advertisers include GE, Olympus, Fidelity Investments and HBO. The app costs…

Even more exciting than American Beauty director Sam Mendes at the helm is the news that at least one of the new iPhone 4 commercials will be demonstrating a video chat component. Engadget has declared that this is not a rumor anymore. A trusted source dropped the ball and confirmed that the new front facing camera spied in those photos from Vietnam will be used in a commercial featuring a mother and daughter having a video chat conversation. Posts on Twitter are now popping up as celebrity actor/actress hopefuls prepare to go for auditions with the award-winning director. While these details of…

As new technology is in the pipeline to be released, the old will be reduced to taking a cost cut and being displayed on Walmart shelves. The iPhone 3GS has been called to replace this spot previously held by the iPhone 3G and hits US stores today. The massive chain store will begin selling Apple’s 16GB 3GS iPhone this week for a cool $97, which will cost roughly the same amount as Apple’s 8GB 3G iPhone; although, there is a rumor being passed around that Apple will be discontinuing the 3G, which was originally released in 2008. The new deal from Walmart will still require iPhone hopefuls to sign up…