Last Week’s News - Week of Nov. 21 / 2010

Another slow news week.  Biggest news was the release of Apple iOS 4.2, which hopefully fixes the slowdowns that affect non-iPhone 4 users.

Apple

The first week of the Beatles being on the iTunes store has proven to be very successful.  If only more companies would clue in that people would rather just buy their music through a simple interface such as iTunes and not resort to torrent files.

Took about a week for iOS 4.2 to release to users.  The initial release was for iPad users, but it was followed near the end of the week by the update for iPhones.  A real nice feature that has been present on Androids for free is the release of Find My iPhone without having to have a MobileMe account.  Unfortunately, Find My iPhone only works on iPads and iPhone 4s…though there are ways to get it to work on earlier versions of the iPhone. 

Also, last week, we saw the release of Sony’s e-reader app for the iPhone/iPad.  It looks like Sony has finally realized that they should compete with Amazon in the app market as well as the e-reader market.  Of course, Amazon has had a 2 year head start on building up a following.

Tech

Two new Android tablets are featured in a first-look hands-on in the following video:

In other tablet news, Dell officially unveiled their tablet/laptop hybrid:  The Dell Inspiron.  RIMs Playbook also proved to be popular among technology analysts.  I personally think it’s RIM’s last chance to move forward in the marketplace.

Mobile

Windows Phone 7 has been out for a couple of weeks now and there are already 3000 apps in the store and many more developers looking to add to that number.

Or, you could just “jailbreak” the phone and run your own apps.

Social

Finally, Twitter’s CEO is worried that his company does not have a long term goal.  It’s always been something that I’ve wondered about as well…how will they monetize the service?  The rumour of business Twitter accounts may actually become a reality next year?