By now, every time you wanted to download a podcast or application from the App Store that was over 10 MB, you got an annoying message asking you to use Wi-Fi because the file was too large. But not anymore.

Apple lifted the 10MB cap, only to double it to 20MB, which should be a more reasonable figure for video and podcast downloads when out of Wi-Fi range. If you try to download files over 20MB though, a message will prompt you to switch to Wi-Fi.

Besides giving iPhone users a wider variety of content they can download over 3G networks, the cap increase may be a sign that the iPad will require larger file

downloads over 3G because of higher resoulation graphics and more complex applications.

The initial 10MB cap was put in place so that iPhone downloads won’t put too much strain on wireless networks, such as AT&T, which is struggling to handle the traffic. For example, AT&T iPhone tethering, which would produce even more traffic on the network, hasn’t been adopted yet, despite operators around the world enabling the option.

But despite difficulties with the AT&T network, Apple decided to forge a deal for 3G connectivity with the carrier again, this time for the 3G-enabled iPads arriving late this spring. Also, Sling Player 3G streaming has been enabled on the iPhone this week, after AT&T allegedly held back this feature because of fears of increased traffic.

AT&T must be under pressure to keep up with Apple’s traffic-demanding products because the carrier’s exclusivity with the iPhone in the U.S. is soon coming to a close.

That high price was cited by The Wall Street Journal as the “buzz-killer” over the handset’s debut. The high-end iPhone 3GS sells for 6,999 yuan ($1,024) without a service contract, which is how most people in China purchase their phones. The same handset can be bought for about $800 in Hong Kong.

“When wrapped together with a service plan, as is generally done in the U.S., the phone will cost Chinese subscribers at least $3,120 over two years, compared with the roughly $2,600 cost for the same period for customers in the U.S.,” the report said.

The average cost of a smartphone in China is $350. And Apple must also compete with an estimated 2 million imported iPhones that were already in China as of the summer of 2009.

The cheapest iPhone runs 4,999 yuan, or $630, according to The Associated Press. And all of the officially sanctioned models come without Wi-Fi. But an imported iPhone 3GS with Wi-Fi can be bought from Chinese street markets for 5,700 yuan, or $835.

China Unicom said it hopes to have Wi-Fi in the next batch of iPhones it intends to release by the end of the year. The feature was left out of the hardware because the government’s regulations temporarily banned the system in favor of a rival Chinese offering known as BDA. That ban, however, was relaxed in May, after manufacturing of the new iPhone model began.

The iPhone’s debut in China has been delayed not only by Chinese government regulations, but also talks with the nation’s carriers. The country of over 1 billion is the largest cell phone market in the world, and one that Apple has been eager to take a crack at, despite a number of setbacks.

The agreement between Apple and China Unicom was made official in August. The non-exclusive agreement has left the door open for Apple to turn to competitor China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless operator. Apple has been in negotiations with China Mobile for some time. China Mobile has 508 million wireless subscribers, while China Unicom has 143 million mobile accounts.

Disney.com, part of the Disney Interactive Media Group, said it will offer users of the popular Apple Inc devices items like the new “Click2Life” feature that lets fans take pictures of images from the Disney.com Web site, and eventually in the physical world, and unlock exclusive content.

For instance, a teenager may one day see a poster of an upcoming “Pirates of the Caribbean” film in a mall, snap a picture of the poster with an iPhone and then generate video content related to that picture or character.

Jason Davis, vice president of Disney.com, said in an interview that the media giant realized it already had a huge audience of iPhone and iPod touch users for its content on its existing mobile application on Disney.com.

Disney.com reaches nearly 31 million unique visitors per month and said that among mobile Web sites, it ranks as the No. 1 entertainment mobile site.

It also has an expanding lineup of many paid applications currently available in Apple’s App Store including Toy Story Mania!, Disney Fairies Fly, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Breakspin.

“Our iPhone and iPod touch traffic is heavily made up of kids and moms. The iPod touch has a very specific demographic geared to the tween,” he said, adding that within Disney content, there are various safety controls.

“Because the applications are self-contained, once you’re in the application, you can’t get into anything else,” he said.

The new application organizes Disney-branded content within one destination on each device, lets users interact with Disney characters through customizable photo frames and audio greetings, listen to Radio Disney live, watch music videos and buy Disney music on Apple’s iTunes Store.

The 1.0.1 update fixed an issue where audio continued to play after leaving Live TV mode, fixed crashes related to changing channels and zooming, added DVB and ATSC programming guides, accepts iPod Best variants when streaming to the iPhone, and more.

The EyeTV app temporarily disappeared from the App Store over the weekend because it included code that let users stream live TV shows over 3G.

“Some test code that enabled live TV streaming over the cellular network was accidentally left in the the EyeTV App,” David Fanning, Elgato’s press contact, told The Mac Observer. “Apple requested that we remove the code since their agreement with AT&T does not allow redirecting TV signals over the cellular network.”

Elgato submitted a version 1.0.1 update to Apple without the test code on Saturday, and by Sunday EyeTV was available at the App Store again. The version number for the app, however, was still listed at 1.0. The application was available at the App Store for about a month before it was pulled.

The 1.0.1 update fixed an issue where audio continued to play after leaving Live TV mode, fixed crashes related to changing channels and zooming, added DVB and ATSC programming guides, accepts iPod Best variants when streaming to the iPhone, and more.

The EyeTV app temporarily disappeared from the App Store over the weekend because it included code that let users stream live TV shows over 3G.

“Some test code that enabled live TV streaming over the cellular network was accidentally left in the the EyeTV App,” David Fanning, Elgato’s press contact, told The Mac Observer. “Apple requested that we remove the code since their agreement with AT&T does not allow redirecting TV signals over the cellular network.”

Elgato submitted a version 1.0.1 update to Apple without the test code on Saturday, and by Sunday EyeTV was available at the App Store again. The version number for the app, however, was still listed at 1.0. The application was available at the App Store for about a month before it was pulled.

Daniel Brusilovsky

TechCrunch.com
Sunday, October 18, 2009; 6:33 AM

The App Store is crowded with tens of thousands of applications, many which do the exact same thing. Just do a quick search on the App Store for Twitter, and you’ll find over 170 applications related to Twitter. But how do you figure out which Twitter application is best? That’s where App of the Day comes in. App of the Day highlights a different application every day for iPhone or iPod Touch users looking to discover high quality applications in the App Store.

Founded by Jordan Satok, App of the Day features community-nominated applications that get featured on the home page each day. Users are then able to comment on the application, and provide feedback for potential buyers.

You only get one nomination per day, reinforcing the goal of the site to only feature quality applications. Whichever application gets the most nominations, then becomes the App of the Day.

App of the Day also works directly with Gravatar, so users don’t have to upload their own picture ? their avatar is just affiliated with their email address, which they use to sign up with on App of the Day. You can find my user profile here.

The concept is quite simple, and is something the Apple community has been looking for. App of the Day provides quality applications that users want to use. Satok built the site in less then 10 days and it is hosted on the Rackspace Cloud.

While Apple’s new in-app purchase feature for iPhones is being widely touted as an antipiracy measure, Apple’s more overarching motive seems to be that of keeping the iPhone at the development forefront for the coolest new apps for mobile users.

At one time, the iPhone held that distinction more or less to itself. But particularly with the advent of online application stores for other smartphone applications, the iPhone now faces more and more competition — among app developers along with consumers — from Google’s Android, Palm Pre, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and other rivals.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, Apple’s new iPhone feature lets users of free apps upgrade to expanded capabilities from directly inside the apps; a visit to the online Apple App Store is no longer needed.

Some are arguing that this approach will stop interlopers from stealing apps by involving servers on both the Apple and third-party developer sides, thereby making developers more aware of who is using their software and how. Although others counter that a truly determined and crafty thief can steal an app anyway, just about everyone seems to acknowledge that the in-app feature will at least help to slow down application piracy, if only by a little.

There’s much more agreement around the notion that the in-app upgrades will save time and resources for developers by ending the practice of creating free “lite” and non-free “full” editions of the same software program.

If either of these possible benefits for developers actually pans out, iPhone users could win, too, by continuing to be the first to get interesting new software apps.

Unthinkable as it might have sounded a year or two ago, this isn’t necessarily happening anymore. For instance, before this week’s announcement of a new content delivery app for iPhone, CBS News apparently introduced the app first — or at least concurrently — on the RIM Blackberry. The same app will be available later this fall for Android and Pre. Other examples are plentiful.

In fact, some app developers are now finding it so hard to make money on the iPhone platform that they’re leaving it behind entirely, in favor of other platforms in either the mobile or non-mobile space.

For one, Second Gear developer Justin Williams has just quit the iPhone fold, selling his Fitness Track and Emergency Information apps to BitBQ’s Patrick Burleson. According to Macworld, Williams complained that iPhone app development is “too much effort with too little reward when compared to distributing software on my own terms on the Mac platform.”

Maybe Apple’s new in-app purchase feature will help curb any emerging iPhone developer bleed.

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By Chris Foresman | Last updated October 15, 2009 9:59 AM CT

A new rumor this week suggests that Apple is developing an FM tuner app for iPhone and iPod touch users. Though not every device has the capability to receive FM signals, building the app is a simple way to add an extra feature to the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and second- and third-gen iPod touches.

An anonymous source for 9to5Mac says work on the app is mostly done at this point, and will likely take cues from the FM tuner interface of the recently introduced fifth-gen iPod nano. However, Apple is reportedly still working on integrating mobile iTunes Store purchasing into the app. This is an obvious extension to iPod nano’s song tagging feature, which allows a user to tag songs they like for possible later purchase via iTunes. Integrating direct purchasing would increase the impulse purchase factor.

The iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and second-gen iPod touch all use a Broadcom BCM4325 radio chip that combines low-power WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM capabilities. The newest iPod touches use the newer Broadcom BCM4329, which also has FM receiving. The original iPhone and iPod touch used chips from Marvell for WiFi, and the iPhone had a separate chip for Bluetooth, so those devices wouldn’t work with an FM tuner app.

While FM tuners have been features of a wide variety of other media players—cough, Zune HD, cough—they have never featured significantly in the iPod line-up. A separate FM tuner accessory Apple introduced in 2006 never sold in significant numbers and was quietly discontinued. However, Broadcom’s Chris Bergey told Ars late last year that FM tuning is particularly popular in other areas of the world, such as India; there phones with FM outnumber those with Bluetooth, for instance.

Since the hardware already has the capability, and the software design is most of the way there with work done on the iPod nano, it would be relatively trivial for Apple to offer up an FM tuner app for the iPhone OS platform. Integrating iTunes purchasing would also be the sort of compelling value add that should give Apple a good reason to make it happen.

The Canon iEPP app lets you select from a wide range of paper sizes and paper types, from card-size (2.2 inches by 3.4 inches) up to letter size. You can choose multiple photos from your iPhone or iPod touch Photo Albums and print up to 20 copies. It will also let you print bordered or borderless photos. When you launch the Canon iEPP, it will automatically find printers on a wireless network. You can start your iPhone camera directly from Canon iEPP, and instantly print captured photos.

Printers compatible with the Canon iEPP currently include the PIXMA MP990, PIXMA MP640, and PIXMA MP560 All-In-Ones. (Canon had hinted that the app was on the way at the launch of those MFPs in August, so we’re glad people who bought them can now take advantage of this functionality.) If you don’t have one of those models, don’t worry; there are other ways of printing from your iPhone or touch.

As Apple gears up for a Wednesday announcement, Apple watchers gear up their speculation.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek

Apple is gearing up for a big announcement on Wednesday, and Apple-watchers are ready with their predictions. Apple could be preparing to unveil a new iPod lineup that includes a camera-sporting iPod Touch.

In addition, an upgrade of Apple’s iTunes store is also likely, and at least one analyst believes there’s a chance Apple could introduce a $700 MacBook and a refresh of the Apple TV.
No one outside of Apple and its manufacturing partners know for sure what Apple will unveil at the Wednesday media event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. But as usual, Apple’s secrecy has fueled a whole lot of speculation among industry observers and media.

One new product deemed most likely to be introduced is an iPod Touch with an integrated camera, and possibly a microphone. The addition of the mike would take the Wi-Fi-enabled device as close as possible to the iPhone in terms of features.

“It would get pretty close to being an iPhone without the cellular connectivity,” Van Baker, analyst for Gartner said. “That could be an interesting device.”

Baker believes a microphone could boost sales because the iPod Touch would be capable of making phone calls through a Wi-Fi hotspot without a service contract from a wireless provider.

In addition, a refresh of the Touch could lead to a drop in the starting price of the older model from $229 to as low as $149, others say. Apple typically drops prices of older models when refreshing product lines.

Speculation is also swirling around Apple’s plans for the iPod Classic, with many observers expecting the company to drop the product from its line of portable media players. Baker believes the Classic, which has a hard-disk drive, will be replaced with a model that uses a more reliable and durable 64 GB solid-state drive. It’s unlikely Apple would drop the Classic and not replace it with a product at a similar price point.

“If they didn’t replace it, then they would have a hole in the line between the iPod Nano and the Touch,” Baker said.

Ezra Gottheil, analyst for Technology Business Research, believes Apple could have a couple of surprises in store, namely a new version of the Apple TV and a new entry-level MacBook that would sell for about $700.

The new Apple TV would need a Web browser that supports Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Flash, a technology used to play online video, and a wireless remote control with a touchpad for playing games and other tasks, Gottheil said. Such a device would be a move toward building a “digital hub” that would link the Web, iTunes, the Mac, and the iPhone or iPod Touch to the big-screen, flat-panel TV in the home.