Europe

Skype 3G iPhone: 5M Downloads — But What’s the Usage? —

Skype says that less than a week after it was made available, nearly 5 million people have downloaded the 3G version of its iPhone app, with the demand distributed across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. I was among them, even though I don’t have a 3G connection, and I’m pretty sure many others without 3G connections did the same. But how many people are actively using the service? Now that’s an important question, and one Reuters forgot to ask.

The company recently told me that the Skype app had been downloaded a total of 12 million times by owners of the iPhone and iPod touch. And while it plans to charge for 3G calls between Skype users starting next year, “We’re not going to want to price ourselves out of the market,” Russ Shaw, Skype’s VP of mobile, told Reuters. “I can’t ignore the fact that consumers (currently) use us for free.”

I wonder if, between AT&T’s new data tariffs and Skype’s charges, there will really be a cost advantage to using Skype. Regardless, we can expect to see its usage climb starting next week, when Apple introduces the newest version of the iPhone with multitasking features. Many people are likely to leave Skype running in the background, especially for IM and Skype-to-Skype call purposes.

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Golden Rules For The iPad Delivery Day —

Warner Bros. Accused of Pirating Anti-Pirating Tech — psycho12345 writes "German firm Medien Patent Verwaltung claims that in 2003, it revealed a new kind of anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. that marks films with specific codes so pirated copies can be traced back to their theaters of origin. But like a great, hilariously-ironic DRM Ouroborus, the company claims that Warner began using the system throughout Europe in 2004 but hasn't actually paid a dime for it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

International iPad shipping dates changed again? —

Filed under: iPad

Just two days after Apple began accepting pre-orders for iPad from the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy on May 10th, they changed the ship date from May 28th to June 7th. Those who ordered on the 10th or 11th could expect their iPads to arrive on May 28th. The rest would have to wait until June 7th. Today, it looks like that date has changed again.

A quick glance at several international online Apple Stores (Canada and the UK for example) reveals that "June 7th" has been changed to simply "June." Shortages in the US have been regularly reported over the last week, perhaps as supplies are diverted to international customers. Even so, it appears that Apple is having trouble keeping up.

Meanwhile, we're hearing from eager customers all over Europe and Canada (who ordered early) that their shipping notifications have been triggered. Some Italian buyers apparently already have their iPad in hand. Also, the iBooks app is now reportedly appearing in the UK iTunes App Store.

If you're outside the US, UK, and Canada, what does your country's store say? Have you heard anything from Apple Store employees? Let us know.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

TUAWInternational iPad shipping dates changed again? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 25 May 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rupert Murdoch's son James runs News Corp.'s sprawling operations in Europe and Asia, and he's had it with the search engines, consumer electronics companies, and users who want access to his company's content without paying a "fair contribution."

In a speech this week to University College London (home to Jeremy Bentham's bizarre "auto-icon"), where Murdoch oversaw the opening of a new Centre for Digital Humanities, he expressed his astonishment that anyone could object to such absolutely ripping ideas as Internet disconnections for copyright infringement.

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Last year, adult media company Perfect 10 filed a lawsuit against the leading file-hosting service, RapidShare. Among other claims, Perfect 10’s lawsuit stated that RapidShare was guilty of infringing the copyrights of many of its images.

The California-based company called for a jury trial in the United States to settle the issue. RapidShare responded by requesting that the case be postponed and transferred to Europe and heard under German law. This request was denied last month and the case went ahead in the United States.

This week the District Court of California rejected Perfect 10’s request for a temporary injunction. The Court stated in its ruling that as a file-hosting company, RapidShare cannot be accused of any copyright infringements. The ruling is a significant victory for RapidShare and the case sets an important precedent in the United States.

“The view that RapidShare does not promote any infringements of copyright, unlike other file-hosts, appears to be gradually catching on,” Christian Schmid, founder of RapidShare said.

“It is a milestone for us that this is also happening in the US. We are happy that the court in California has not bought into the odd line of argument put forward by Perfect 10 and we look forward to increasingly emphasize the major difference between RapidShare and illegal share-hosts,” Schmid added.

For Rapidshare this is the second high profile legal victory this month. Earlier, a German Court of Appeal overturned an earlier verdict in the case against the movie rental company Capelight Pictures. In the verdict it stated that RapidShare is not liable for acts of copyright infringement committed by its users.

It is not entirely clear what Schmid means by “illegal share-hosts” in his comment, but we assume that he refers to sites that encourage copyright infringement. The company previously said it would distance itself from other file-hosters that try to win the favor of those users that upload and distribute copyrighted content.

RapidShare itself does all it can to avoid such claims and is hoping to convert pirates into paying customers. Instead of simply removing pages where copyrighted material can be downloaded, RapidShare would like to redirect users to an online store where the same content can be bought legally.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

BREAKING: The Apple iPad store is now popping up in other countries allowing iPad users to purchase apps directly on iPad using your their iTunes account.

So far we’ve confirmed it’s appeared in the UK, Belgium, Spain, Israel, France, the Philippines and New Zealand among others.

In fact, a quick check around the other stores also confirms that this looks like a worldwide release.

However it looks like there is no iBooks or iWorks app outside the U.S., yet.

European iPad users could pre-order the iPad on May 10, with shipping expected on May 28.

The international release of the iPad was delayed due to heavy U.S. domestic demand, according to Apple. In the UK, the iPad will cost from £429 to £699 pounds (with 699 representing the 64GB 3G model). In the rest of Europe the iPad prices for the rest of Europe will be 499 to 799 euros. More prices here.

We already knew it was hours if not minutes away - see our earlier report - and it's perhaps no surprise that New Zealand gets the goods ahead of Europe and the US (a bit like New Year's day). Yes folks, the official Twitter app for iPhone is here, you know the one expected based on Tweetie ever since Twitter bought the company. We expect other iPhone app stores around the world to propagate shortly.

Daily deal service Groupon, hot off a new funding that valued the company at $1.35 billion, may not love all those clones of its service out there. But they’re certainly being realistic about things – tomorrow they’ll announce the acquisition of German startup Citydeal, CEO Andrew Mason just called to tell me.

Citydeal first launched in January, raised €4 million in funding, and now has offers in 80 European cities. They have over a million subscribers to their daily deals, says Mason, compared to about 5 million for Groupon.

The Citydeal services will be rebranded Groupon. Currently each city is under a different domain name and there are some variations on the name – see citydeal.de and mycitydeal.co.uk, for example.

This is Groupon’s second acquisition. Earlier this month they acquired Mob.ly and opened a Silicon Valley office.

We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC.

But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.

So today we’re announcing the following changes:

More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we're working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.

From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we'll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.

Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.

Posted by Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering