Apple is looking to improve Siri, its digital voice assistant for iOS devices. The Cupertino, California company posted a job listing on social networking site, LinkedIn and is specifically looking for writers that can help to improve the personality of Siri.

We’re looking for a uniquely creative individual to help us evolve and enrich Siri, our virtual personal assistant. Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways. The ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.

Siri is currently included in Apple’s newest iPad, iPhone lineup, as well the fifth generation iPod touch. Siri, despite initially launching to popularity has become a secondary feature for some users, who would rather do searches and scheduling themselves instead of relying on the digital assistant.

Apple is looking to improve the usability of the service, which has been somewhat of a failure and has partially contributed to the ousting of iOS chief Scott Forstall from the company. Apple appears to be molding Siri in order for it to become as similar to a human conversation as possible. During the introductory keynote, Forstall noted that Siri truly understands what a user is saying and responds as such. With this position fulfilled, Siri will continue to gain far more responses to prompts than it currently has.

{Via iMore}

Earlier this month, Apple seeded the first beta of iOS 6.1 to developers that included new features allowing developers to integrate iOS Maps into their applications, as well as fixes for boarding passes in Passbook as well as changes in Safari. Now, Apple has seeded a second beta of iOS 6.1 to developers with a build number of 10B5105c, as opposed to the build number of 10B5095f for the first beta of iOS 6.1. it is unclear what changes the second beta has brought to the update.

It is likely stability improvements for the iOS Maps and Passbook features. It is unclear exactly when Apple will release iOS 6.1 to the public but Apple will likely identify other bugs and include them in the final update, perhaps even releasing another beta before finally releasing it.

Alongside the second beta of iOS 6.1, Apple also released a beta of the Apple TV software, as well as Xcode 4.6 Developer Preview 2. Developers who are registered to receive these updates can go and download the beta software through Apple’s Developer page.

{Via MacRumors}

Apple released iOS 6 to the public on September 19th and since then has not released an update to the popular mobile software, currently operating on the full sized iPad, new iPad mini, iPhone, and iPod Touch. On Thursday, Apple seeded iOS 6.1 beta to developers with a number of new features, including features allowing developers to integrate iOS Maps into their applications, as well as fixes for boarding passes in Passbook as well as changes in Safari.

The update also carries a number of bug fixes across the lineup of iOS devices, including one in Maps, where there is now a large button allowing for users to report problems to Apple. The iOS 6.1 beta has a build number of 10B5095f, and is available for developers to download on the Apple Developers Page.

It is unclear when Apple will release iOS 6.1 to the public or what other new features and bug fixes will be included in the update, but Apple will likely roundup a number of other bug fixes and test them on developers before releasing to the public.

{Via MacRumors}

It appears that Apple is being very generous or mistakenly applied a perks plan for its employees to thousands of its iOS users, upgrading them to the $40/year iCloud storage plan, which provides users with 25GB of storage. What’s interesting about this is that the plan is set to expire in the year 2050, leading users to believe that this is likely a glitch and not a promotion of any kinds.

iMore notes that free 25GB MobileMe accounts of paid users are set to expire very soon, which may point to a mistake by Apple in managing these specific accounts. The 25GB upgrade is only being seen on some iOS devices while many remain at the standard 5GB of free storage.

Apple has not yet corrected the assumed issue and has not commented on the nature of the upgrade. It is likely an error, so enjoy it while you can.

Do you see the upgrade? Do you pay for iCloud already? If so, are you noticing a difference?

Following the public release of iOS 6 on Wednesday, Apple also updated its suite of iOS iLife applications, including iMovie, GarageBand and iPhoto for iPhone 5. iPhoto version 1.1 is the biggest of all of the updates, and has been updated to support the new fourth generation iPod touch as well as the new iPhone 5.

These apps have been optimised to run on the taller screen of iPhone 5, utilising the extra pixels to allow easy editing in iMovie in landscape mode or seeing more of the instruments in GarageBand. The number a third-party developers have already pushed updates to their apps to run on the new iPhone 5 including Twitter, Facebook, Flipboard and many more.

iPhoto {App Store}

– Added support for iPod touch (4th generation and later)
– Coaching tips have been added to the Help system on the iPhone and iPod touch
– Effects now include six new Apple-designed ink effects such as Chalk and Palette Knife
– Images up to 36.5 megapixels are now supported*
– Full resolution photos can now be imported via iTunes File Sharing
– Tag albums can be created by adding custom tags to photos
– “Updating Library” alert appears less frequently
– Multiple photos can now be saved to the Camera Roll at one time
– Cropping presets now use detected faces to determine composition
– Tilt-shift and gradient effects can now be rotated

GarageBand was updated to version 1.3, now allowing users to create their own ringtones as well as import music from the iOS device itself.

– Create custom ringtones and alerts for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
– Import songs from the Music library on your iOS device
– Play or record with GarageBand in the background while using other apps
– Addresses a number of minor issues related to overall performance and stability

iMovie was updated to version 1.4 with the ability to upload 1080p HD resolution for sharing to YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo.

– Three new trailers — Adrenaline, Coming of Age, and Teen
– Add photos to any trailer and have them automatically animate with the Ken Burns effect
– On iPad, open the Precision Editor to create split audio edits
– Play clips in the Video Browser before adding them to your project
– Create a slideshow by sharing photos from iPhoto for iOS
– Tap the help icon to display Coaching tips
– 1080p HD upload resolution is now available for sharing to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and CNN iReport
– Audio recordings captured in a project now appear in the Audio Browser for easy access

With these new updates, Apple has made the iLife apps for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad much more powerful, bringing them closer to desktop class applications. With iOS 6, the apps run much faster and are more integrated than before.

Apple discontinued MobileMe, the cloud service prior to iCloud and integrated in the emails as well as contacts and photos. Now, with iOS 6 beta 3, Apple appears to be transitioning users from me.com email address to iCloud.com.

icloud.com email addresses are now available for iCloud mail users. Users signing up for new Apple IDs, or enabling Mail on their iCloud account for the first time, will automatically receive an @icloud.com email address instead of a me.com email address. iCloud users with @me.com addresses that have been used with iOS 6 beta 3 will receive an @icloud.com email address that matches their @me.com address.

Although Apple discontinued MobileMe on June 30, users still have a limited time to access their data. This latest change may not affect users a great deal, although emails would now have to be sent to iCloud.com as opposed to a me.com address. Apple’s final version of iOS 6 is expected for release alongside the next generation iPhone 5  during the month of October, when all iCloud user accounts will be forced to make this change.

{via MacRumors}

Apple announced iOS 6 during the company’s annual WWDC conference, and showcased some of the main features of the new update including a revamped Maps application and Siri improvements. The Cupertino company released an initial beta to developers directly after the conference, allowing developers to test the new features on the their devices and then released iOS 6 beta 2 in late June.

On Monday, Apple released iOS 6 beta 3 to developers, fixing bugs and adding a number of new features. This latest beta comes comes as Build 10A5355d, about three weeks after the last with Build 10A5338d. Some of the features of iOS 6 beta 3 include:

• Roadwork and traffic accidents showing up in Maps app
• Answer and Decline buttons for FaceTime calls have returned
• iMessage on iPad now accepting phone number as valid contact info
• Greater 3D Flyover coverage in Maps
• Glyphs for bookmarks, Reading List, and history in Safari
• Auto-brightness changes gradually

One of the other main features noticed was a change under the Navigation settings, giving users the option to measure distance in kilometers or meters, adjust the volume of the navigation voice, and providing map labels in either normal or large that can display in a local language or strictly English.

Apple’s iOS 6 betas continue to improve with each release and give developers the chance to test each feature and use it with their own apps. Apple is expected to release several more betas before the final public release, which is expected during the September / October timeframe. It is also likely that the public version of iOS 6 will release alongside the next generation iPhone 5 which is also expected during the same timeframe.

{via MacRumors — Image Credit: 9to5Mac}

It’s here again. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2012) is back and is scheduled for June 11. Apple announced early Wednesday that WWDC 2012 would be held from June 11 through the 15 in San Francisco, as it is every year. Tickets for the conference sold out in under two hours this year, beating out WWDC 2011 tickets sales which sold out in under twelve hours.

“We have a great WWDC planned this year and can’t wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The iOS platform has created an entirely new industry with fantastic opportunities for developers across the country and around the world.”

This year’s conference will likely focus on OS X Mountain Lion, which is due for release later this summer, and iOS 6 which will probably appear during the conference in the form of a developer preview. Apple mentioned in their announcement that they would have about 100 technical sessions for developers, with over 1,000 Apple engineers to help attendees of the event.

The time frame for the event isn’t very surprising, when considering the fact that Apple typically holds the conference during this time of the year, in order to announce its product releases chronologically; Mac OS X release, iOS with iPhone, iPod and then the iPad at the beginning of the following year.

WWDC is Apple’s premier event, of which other events eventually derive, such iOS 6 and the Apple’s iDevices following up the announcement a few months later. Developers who currently hold tickets to the event may encounter higher than usual prices on flights and hotel bookings, not only because of the massive increase in flight purchases, but because of the U.S Open golf championship being held in San Francisco, as well as the slew of vacationers who head west during this time of year.

{via MacRumors}

Alongside the new iPad, Apple also announced the availability of iPhoto for iPad, an app that was only available to Mac users in the past. Apple has updated all of their apps to take advantage of the new Retina Display in the new iPad, and also released updates to iMovie and GarageBand.

With iPhoto, Apple will now be offering a solution for photo organization on the iPad and editing of those photos. iPhoto for iPad offers a number of photo editing features including auto-enhancements such as straightening photos and fixing contrast. Brush palettes are also included with editing tools, ranging from red-eye removal, lighten, sharpen, soften, and darken. Images of up to 19 megapixels can be edited or viewed on iPhoto.

iPhoto, Apple’s popular photography app, has been completely reimagined for iOS to take full advantage of the Retina display and intuitive Multi-Touch gestures on iPad and iPhone. Simple gestures can be used to select and compare photos side by side and flag your best shots. iPhoto gives you full control over color, exposure and contrast, and you simply touch the parts of the image you want to change. You can enhance pictures by adding beautiful Apple-designed effects with just a tap, or apply adjustments exactly where you want them with fingertip brushes. In addition to posting photos to Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, you can beam photos between your iPhone and iPad; stream photos and slideshows to your Apple TV with AirPlay; and use iCloud to publish photo journals to the web and share your stories with friends and family in a whole new way.

iPhoto for iPad joins iMovie and GarageBand for iPad in the App Store and is be available for $4.99.

On Friday, Apple published a new page on their website mentioning that the company created or supported over 500,000 U.S. jobs through its business. The exact number of jobs used by Apple was 514,000 jobs, which they divided into two groups: 304,000 jobs directly tied to Apple and its business partners and another 210,000 jobs that are part of the “iOS app economy”.

The total number of jobs created or supported includes 47,000 Apple employees and another 257,000 employees from companies such as Samsung, Corning, FedEx, and UPS which supply Apple with products and services. The 257,000 employees that Apple highlighted was not direct numbers but were determined through “employment multipliers” published by the U.S. government and applied to Apple’s domestic expenditures.

With more than 550,000 apps and more than 24 billion downloads in less than four years, the App Store has created an entirely new industry: iOS app design and development.

The “App Economy” was also reported as a source of job creation, paying out over $4 billion to developers during the last four years of the App Store’s existence. The App Store sparked a whole new smartphone app industry, adding 210,000 new jobs.

Prior to the App Store, applications weren’t seriously considered to be a lucrative market. The App Store has created many jobs and markets, from developers and marketers, to app reviewers. As Apple continues to grow into the economy and increases its number of employees, the company will continue to use ‘job creation’ as a very smart marketing strategy to draw awareness and customers to their brand.

{via MacRumors}

On Monday, Apple’s iPhone officially turned 5 years old, marking a historic moment, when Steve Jobs took introduced Apple’s revolutionary mobile phone.

On January, 9, 2007, Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs came on stage with a huge presence, ready to introduce the product that would change the smartphone market forever. About 20 minutes into the presentation, Mr. Jobs introduced the iPhone, with a 3.5” multitouch display, extraordinary metal design, and a combination of Mac OS X and Apple’s own brew of a mobile operating system, later renamed iOS.

In 2007, the tech industry had never seen such a device, with customers lining up at every Apple Store in the United States to get their hands on one. In 2008, Apple followed up with its success of the iPhone with the iPhone 3G, followed by the 3GS in 2009, and the iPhone 4 in 2010. The most recent, the iPhone 4S outsold every model introduced in Apple’s history.

Apple has experienced a drastic increase in sales each year, leading to a record one million iPhone 4S sales on the first day of release. The iPhone was introduced at the MacWorld 2007 conference, with an excellent salesman strategy by Steve Jobs, announcing that Apple would be introducing three products a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator. Jobs later revealed that all three were included on one device.

Apple changed the the technology market as we know it, and it all started with the iPhone, which led to the iPad and iPod touch and even innovation in Apple’s desktop software. On January, 9, 2007, Apple made history, and made us all realize how a combination of design, technology, and a little customer appreciation could have such a powerful effect.

Weather Live Review

The app is simple to setup, locations can be setup either using the iPhone location service to set you current location or you can search locations world wide. You can also add multiple locations and switch between them with a simple swipe of the screen.

With a location set the screen loads with multiple pieces of weather related information from the current, minimum and maximum daily temperatures to current humidity, precipitation, pressure and visibility all encased in a beautifully animated weather background based on the current conditions and a digital clock in the center.

Weather Live looks beautiful, it pops off the screen and the information is presented clearly and concisely. That being said there are customizations to me made in many areas to get the display to be just how you like.

While having all of the details loaded provides you with he maximum amount of information taking it down to the text only options provides the best view of the gorgeous animated backdrops.

Also under your control are the temperature and distance units, clock settings and alerts for when the temperature drops below zero. As previously mentioned you can also enable the temperature badge to display the current temperature on your home screen. I’ve had mixed results with this and while it displays it doesn’t always update as I would expect it to without going into the app first.

Weather Live is now my new ‘screensaver’ for both my iPhone and iPad, it’s informative, great looking and simple to use, the only feature I miss is that I would love to be able to see some of the other weather animations that I may never get to see living in mid-west
USA!

What we like:

• Looks amazing
• Customizable
• Filled with information

What to know:

• Temperature icon doesn’t always update
• No way to preview other weather animations

Gallery

After Palm’s acquisition by HP, and a revamp of the hardware, HP still failed to make an impact with great hardware.

With its TouchPad experiencing decline in sales, HP figured that open sourcing was the only option left before closing up shop in webOS altogether. By open sourcing, HP is giving way to leading phone manufacturers, such as HTC and Samsung to use the software on better hardware.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.”

After an Apple like approach to the in house development of software and hardware HP has given up and is discontinuing its mobile hardware effort. However, according to a report from ZDNet, the open sourcing of webOS could lead to competition against Google’s Android, which is currently open sourced and is available on a number of phones. This could also pose as competition to iOS, by taking on a similar strategy to Android.

webOS could potentially sell more of its software on more smartphones, and possibly outsell Apple’s iPhone shipments. Apple continues to lead the manufacturing side of the market, but ultimately is behind on the number of smartphones with iOS. HP CEO Meg Whitman, in an interview with The Verge, revealed details about the open sourcing of webOS and also mentions that HP is still planning to use webOS on future tablet products, indicating the company is not abandoning mobile hardware entirely.

Will HP be creating any new webOS hardware?

Meg: The answer to that is yes but what I can’t tell you is whether that will be in 2012 or not. But we will use webOS in new hardware, but it’s just going to take us a little longer to reorganize the team in a quite different direction than we’ve been taking it in the past.

Are we talking printers? Or tablets and phones?

Meg: In the near term what I would imagine — and this could change, in full disclosure — is I would think tablets, I do not believe we will be in the smartphone business again.

iOS accounts for the largest share of the connected devices – which includes smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices – with a 43.1 percent share. Android has the highest share of the smartphone market with 43.7 percent, but the iPad pushes the iOS platform into the lead overall.

When using traffic to measure the impact of the iOS platform, the market share jumps to 58.5 percent. Android is second with a 31.9 percent share of non-computer browser-based page views. This would indicate that iOS users are heavier users of Internet content than Android folks.

The iOS platform also accounts for the largest share of Internet traffic, measured in terms of browser-based page views, in the U.S. at present. When measuring market share of Internet traffic by platform, iOS accounted for more than half (58.5 percent) of the share of total non-computer traffic in the U.S. Android OS ranked second, delivering 31.9 percent of overall non-computer traffic in August.

The iPad, however, really dominates. Of all tablet traffic in the U.S., iPads account for 97.2 percent. iPad traffic has even topped iPhones, with a 46.8 percent share compared to a 42.6 share. And what’s even more interesting for content developers, half of iPad users have made a purchase from the device.

While non-computer traffic is still a small share of all digital traffic around the world, it’s growing quickly and iOS and iPads are leading the way.

iOS developers have begun updating their applications for iOS 5. Apple is now approving applications that utilize features of the current iOS 5 beta and incorporate it into their applications. One of the first applications to receive iOS 5 compatibility was the Netflix for iPhone application. Netflix released a minor bug fix for 4.3.4 and iOS 5 simultaneously.

These new updates will allow developers to lay down the framework for iOS 5 once it is released and gives them a head start to work out any bugs associated with iOS 5 in their applications. Developers are able to do this by using the latest beta of the forthcoming software update.

Developers using iOS 5 beta for app updates is going to reflect positively during the final release of iOS 5, making it easier for developers to tone their apps and for users who will have to deal with a lot less bugs and crashes. With the groundwork laid from betas, developers will also be able to include support for other features such as Notification Center, OS wide Twitter Integration, and Newsstand.

{via AppleInsider}

Apple surpassed Nokia’s Symbian OS in order to claim the 2nd spot, directly behind Android. In the second quarter of 2011, Apple held the number one spot for world’s largest individual smartphone manufacturer, because of Android’s fragmented manufacturing process and the availability of its OS on multiple hardware.

The problem for Nokia is that demand for its Symbian-based smart phones has dissipated very rapidly, particularly in operator-led markets, such as Western Europe, where it’s been strong in the past. It badly needs the first of its Windows Phone devices to launch as soon as possible to arrest a decline and, hopefully, silence its critics.

Nokia is trailing behind both Samsung and Apple with only 16.7 million units last quarter. Google’s Android, Apple, and Samsung are now the leaders of the smartphone operating system and are setting their foot down.

Apple is shipping iPhones much more rapidly and increasing iOS usage around the world. Apple has now penetrated every major market and is experiencing major success with it’s host of iOS devices.

Apple has the ability to lead ahead of Android if it continues to experience this growth and adoption of iOS in it’s suite of mobile products. With the rumored iPhone 5 expected to be introduced this fall Apple could leap ahead in the third quarter.

{via AppleInsider}

Apple on Monday launched iCloud.com and the iWork beta for developers. The iCloud.com login screen is also identical to the one seen just before the iCloud announcement. This is one of the three major updates announced at Apple’s WWDC 2011 event, highlighting iOS 5, Mac OS X Lion, and iCloud.

Reports from users and developers alike say that some have had trouble logging in while others are having a seamless experience with the service. Apple launched the two betas in order to work out the kinks for final release.

Apple is strengthening it’s mobile devices with every software update, moving away from a desktop computer and making the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch as independent as possible.

iWork for iOS, iOS 5, and iCloud are the three features working together in order for the iDevices to gain their independence. Apple has not yet announced a formal release date for iCloud or iWork for iOS, but looking at the release of the betas, we can assume that they will be released in late August or early September time frame.

{via MacRumors}

In 2011 we’ve already witnessed all major players in the smartphone industry catching up with Apple by introducing their own version of tablets. Even though many tablets introduced this year have struggled to match iPads sales it’s certainly worth noting that Samsung has emerged to be one of the key players to watch out for.

In a recent interview with Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope Apple’s COO Tim Cook said, “he sees no reason why the tablet market shouldn’t eclipse the PC market over the next several years,”.

We’ve heard Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs share similar thoughts during D8 when he compared the PC market to trucks and tablets to cars and said that eventually cars replaced the trucks.

I use my iPad 2 everyday and it’s clearly very efficient at doing some key tasks while on the other hand for more heavy duty tasks I still go back to my Mac. The iPad has certainly reduced the amount of time I used to spend with the Mac. When Apple introduced the iPad Jobs very clearly explained that the tablet would not necessarily replace laptops or smartphones but, it would make accomplishing certain tasks more enjoyable and intuitive.

It’s important to note that the tablet market is probably evolving much faster than any other consumer product. As the mobile technology matures further we could be seeing much more powerful devices in near future.

So, is Tim Cook referring to “iPad 2″ when he talked about tablet market outselling PC market? No! The current gen iPad is great but it would require a few more years and some more innovation to reach there.

With WWDC 2011 keynote event just 4 days away now, I can barely contain my excitement. I don’t care that there (probably) won’t be any announcement related to iPhone 5 / 4S – for me, it’s all about iOS 5 and iCloud. I’m beginning to get slightly bored of iOS 4, and I believe certain things – like notifications – are desperate for an overhaul.

If you’re looking forward to the start of the live keynote event on Monday just as much as I am, and you’re lucky enough to have a ticket, the best way to get set is with the WWDC 2011 app for your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Like last year the WWDC application is your mobile guide to the conference, with access to a range of information such as the event’s schedule. You can also use it to make a reservation at the User Interface, App Review, iTunes Connect, Program Support, or Developers Publications labs; view floor diagrams of Moscone West; and create a custom schedule of the sessions, events, and labs you plan to attend.

Apple keeps you up-to-date with the latest announcements during the week via the application, and will publish photos daily from the sessions, labs and special events.

As usual the application is completely free to download, but you do have to be a WWDC attendee to use it unfortunately. Unless, of course, you know of a jailbreak tweak that provides access?

Spotify is one of Europe’s best kept secrets. Currently unavailable to the throngs of US based would-be users, Spotify is an online music streaming service complete with native applications for Mac and PC as well as mobile devices running iOS or Android. A Windows Phone 7 version of the Spotify client is also in the works.

What makes Spotify so special is its huge music library. Featuring ‘millions of tracks’ Spotify offers both a free service and a pair paid-for options. The differences between the accounts are subtle, but at £9.99p/m their unlimited account is the one to go for if you’re even remotely into your music.

What really took Spotify to the next level was the release of its iOS client, bringing streaming music to the millions of iPhones and iPod touches sold in Europe. The inclusion of multitasking support by Apple and the subsequent app update just solidified Spotify’s position as the iPod replacement application for many, and life was good.

But there’s a problem. The advent of Apple’s AirPlay infrastructure means many Spotify users (including yours truly) are using iDevices as a way to throw music to an Apple TV for playback through fancy speaker systems. Opening a whole new market for Spotify – adding people who don’t use headphones or docks to the company’s demographic – the addition of AirPlay once again takes Spotify into the realm of the must-have app. But the iPhone’s screen is small – not brilliant for browsing music with colourful cover art and long playlists. We need an iPad app – but we don’t have one. Yet.

According to a tweet by the @Spotify Twitter account, we might not be waiting for long.

Bringing Spotify to the iPad and it’s large screen could open up a whole new interface for the application – larger album art, better use of playlists, more social interaction etc.

Let’s just hope we won’t be ‘watching this space’ for too long!

{Source: Razorianfly}

As TUAW writes, Dorsey’s Instagram account now sports a photo of what appears to be an Apple in the centre of a large square. Putting two and two together isn’t too difficult here with the blogosphere speculating the Apple represents, well Apple and the large square is, you guessed it, Square.

Square is Dorsey’s current project – an iOS accessory that brings mobile card payments to the platform without the need to create expensive merchant accounts. The Square accessory is already available in Apple’s retail stores.

Speculation that Apple is looking to use Square’s system to handle payments in its newly revamped stores is now rife – speculation that we don’t think can be too far from the mark. After all, what else could the partnership be for?

Unfortunately Square is currently only available inside the United States – could Apple be launching the system and associated accessory worldwide?

Let’s hope so!

Creator of Instapaper, Marco Arment said he wouldn’t call the new feature a competitor to his service until it syncs with iOS devices. With Instapaper’s big draw being its ability to stay in sync across multiple platforms, this was a reasonable statement to make. Problem is, that cross-platform syncing is now part of Reading List too.

A tipster has told 9to5Mac that Macs running the latest developer preview of Lion does actually sync with iOS’ Mobile Safari thanks to MobileMe bookmark syncing and, presumably, bookmark syncing through iTunes.

Using the new developer preview of Lion and an iPad the tipster discovered a new bookmark folder labelled Com.Apple.ReadingList. Inside are the contents of, you guessed it, Safari’s Reading List on the Mac.

What this means for Instapaper in the long run remains to be seen, though Arment has recently begun adding a social element to the service, presumably to stave off any competition that would arrive.

He probably didn’t expect it to come from Apple, or via Safari.

While AAPL brand value jumped 84% to $154billion, prior number one Google saw its own value drop 2% to $111 billion, writes iPhoneInCanada.

Peter Walshe, director of Willward Brown who are the people behind the BrandZ study says Apple’s philosophy of offering premium products at reasonable prices has taken the company to the summit.

Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model…It’s doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire…Obviously, it has to be allied to great products and a great experience, and Apple has nurtured that.

It’s perhaps no great surprise that Apple is doing so well in this particular study, with the Cupertino outfit reporting record profits quarter after quarter and with iPad and iPhone sales off the charts. Apple has over $65 billion in cash alone, just waiting to buy the right company for another breakthrough product.

Or they might just buy Luxembourg.

Much like YouTube is to the rest of the world, the YouKu service is China’s leading video streaming website; allowing users to upload content with no duration limit. It has also partnered with over 1,500 license holders, including television stations and film and TV production companies in China, who regularly provide content to the site.

Citing information gathered from a trusted source, TechNode reports that YouKu’s founder, Victor Koo, recently met with Steve Jobs to discuss the possibility of having his service pre-installed on iOS devices sold in China.

While there’s currently no other evidence to back up TechNode’s claims, replacing the YouTube app for Chinese users — who physically can’t get any use out of it — certainly seems like the logical thing for Apple to do.

Either that, or at least allow users who don’t want or need the application to remove it. One of the things on my wish-list for iOS 5 is the ability to remove pre-installed applications that I have no use for.

For example, I opened Apple’s Stocks application when I received my first-generation iPhone – just to see what it was all about. Since then, I’ve never used it. It just sits there, hidden away in a folder, taking up space.

I also don’t see a need for the Contacts application – it’s incredibly easy to access contacts through the Phone app; so why do we need another application for it?

What do you think? Would you like the ability to remove Apple’s pre-installed applications? Let me know in the comments.

Apple’s next major software release, iOS 5, is expected to be unveiled during WWDC 2011 and according to a new report Apple has begun widespread testing of the upcoming release.

9to5 Mac notes that they have been receiving tips from various developers who have reported that their apps are now being tested with iOS 5. Apple is known to support the current gen and immediate predecessor so iPhone 3GS will most likely run on iOS 5. If Apple would have introduced the iPhone 5 in June then it would have been a different story.

Some of the highly anticipated features among users include better notifications, easier way to manage multiple apps, widgets and more. It is widely believed that Apple has been working on cloud services and during this years WWDC we could finally see Apple offering the rumoured music locker service.

Widespread testing of iOS 5 also indicates that the release has entered the final stages and could be introduced as a GM seed for developers during Worldwide Developers Conference so that they can test their apps and make sure they are compatible with the latest software.

What are the top 3 features you’d like iOS 5 to include? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.