Exciting times from California this evening. Well, maybe. Well, probably. Sort of. Here’s the rundown of what Lord Jobs decreed moments ago:

iOS 4.1 will be released next week for iPhone and iPod Touch, to include:

• fixes to previous bugs, including a promised solution for long-suffering iPhone 3G users. Thank. Christ.

• the ability to take HDR photos – it automatically creates mosaics of photos taken at different exposures to produce images with more detail

• new Games Center functionality that’ll allow gamers to connect through apps, including shared gameplay and scoreboards

iOS4.2 will be released later in November for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch including iOS 4 improvements like multitasking, as well as wireless printing

The iPod range has been overhauled, from Shuffle to the iPod Touch:

• the new iPod Shuffle is based on the squarer second generation, but dinkier, and includes playlists and 15 hours battery time, and will be $49 for 2 GB.

• the iPod Nano loses the circular track-wheel, to be replaced with a multi-touch screen; it’s something of a comedy device – it’s almost too small to hold. The iPod Nano is $99 for 8 GB.

•the new iPod Touch will include Retina Display, both a front and rear camera, including FaceTime and HD video capability, and costs from $229 for the 8GB version

And then we were onto iTunes. Yes, it kept on coming and the audience took any excuse to holler like a pack of sycophantic banshees. iTunes 10 will include Ping, a new social network for iTunes users, allowing users to connect to friends and generate newsfeeds of music and events. “It’s not Facebook, it’s not Twitter.” Actually, yes it is, Steve. It’s Facebook.

Finally, onto Apple TV – a new teeny tiny box for rented tv shows and movies, costing just 99¢ per show to rent for 48 hours. No word yet on what shows will be available in the UK, except to say that there will be content available in this country. It’ll cost $99.

There’s an Apple “special event” coming in less than a week’s time, and Bitterwallet will be there live! At our desks! In the UK! Watching everyone else report it! There’s been no shortage of rumours of the last few weeks, but what do we think will be revealed by Steve Jobs on stage?

We haven’t bothered talked to a single expert or any of the UK’s leading tech journalists, but we’ve taken a stab at what you may or may not see 1st September:

1) The invite is clearly all about music, so will Apple’s iTunes Cloud service finally be revealed? This is expected to allow users to upload their music collection to a dedicated space on Apple’s servers, so you can access it from wherever you are in the world, on any computer or device.

2) Updates to the iPod devices are almost a certainty – this is the traditional time for Jobs to announce tweaks and changes. It’s possible there’ll be a new iPod Touch with front and rear cameras, capable of running Facetime across WiFi, as well as some mandatory but undoubtedly pointless fiddling with smaller iPod devices.

3) There’s been a lot of noise around Apple TV, or iTV, and a service that’ll actually be of some consequence to the mainstream consumer. Rumours include a smaller box that’ll allow iPhone apps to be ran on your TV, presumably controlled in a similar way to how this Star Wars app allows your iPhone to control actions occurring on a computer screen.

4) The iPad could get the nod on the iOS 4 firmware update, and the iPhone may well get a shiny iOS 4.1.

5) A real wildcard – the arrival of Game Center. This was announced back in April as part of the iOS 4 event and was due for a Autumn release, which would fit with next week’s event. It’s a social gaming network that’ll connect players around the world and allow them to interact through gaming.

Stick a fork in us, we’re done – but what do you think we’ll see next week? Answers and the usual Apple-related bile in the comments, please.

This isn’t the definitive article as far as we’re concerned, but it’s certainly a step towards a future where social networks like Facebook are central to every aspect of our lives; in this case, talking on the dog and bone. This new app from Vonage allows owners of iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads and Android-based handsets to call their Facebook contacts – without knowing their phone number. The only condition is that both parties must have downloaded the Vonage app:

So assuming you’re on WiFi or have an unlimited data tariff (not as likely as it use to be), you can make free calls – that’s nothing new, of course.

Turning your Facebook account into your phonebook throws up two issues; one concerns traction – take the percentage of Facebook users who have a handset-compatible device, are aware of the app and actually download it – and there probably aren’t many Facebook friends you can call.

The second is that if your connections on Facebook were really your friends or even individuals you had the slightest interest in talking to, you’d already have their phone number.

Both are issues are likely to be resolved over time; if not through this app, then there’s no doubt this functionality will become native to the official Facebook app, and may become a native feature of handsets – Facebook has the sort of reach amongst consumers that makes it viable. And the continuing erosion of personal boundries will invariably mean that collectively we won’t worry if distant strangers have more immediate access to us; for some, collecting friends on Facebook is a game, and throwing away access to the minutaie of our lives will continue to occur without giving the matter a second thought.

Thanks to avid Bitterwallet reader Ben for the tip-off

Recent media coverage would have you believe that Apple are screwed. The reality is, of course, nothing of the sort. And it won’t stop, either; the iPhone 4 press conference made the front page of The Sun – incontrovertible proof that however piss-poor you care to think Apple’s products are, the mainstream is beginning to lap them up.

So there’s that, and the fact they’ve got a metric fuckton of cash in the bank.

The quarterly earnings call that Apple has with members of the media revealed that everything is selling faster than Apple can pay a Chinese factory worker to make them. Apple posted a revenue of $15.7 billion for the previous quarter with a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion. Some other specifics from the call include:

• A new all-time record for quarterly Mac sales
• Highest quarterly revenue ever, $15.7 billion, an increase of 61%
• Net income up 78% over a year ago
• 33% year over year growth for Macs
• iPod touch grew 48% year over year
• 1.7 million iPhone 4s sold in the five initial countries
• 3.27 million iPads in 10 countries

During the call, Steve Jobs also mentioned that Apple “have amazing new products still to come this year.” It’s unlikely these will be new product lines, but what most people are expecting to see is the introduction of front and rear cameras and FaceTime to the iPod Touch. Regardless of whether you’re an Apple hater or not, that would make the Touch a very decent piece of kit indeed.

[TechCrunch]

There’s a whole host of technological marvels on the DOTD menu for you today – a small gadget thing, a slightly larger gadget thing and a significantly larger gadget thing. All of them at rock-bottom prices.

All of these and much much more at HotUKDeals…

We’re kicking off today with an old favourite – the Apple iPod Touch – available for £149.99 but part of an offer where you can get an additional £30 back in gift vouchers when you buy it.

It’s the 8GB model and what you’re basically getting is an iPhone that no one can piss you off by ringing you up on. Or if you like, an itsy bitsy tiny iPad.

Next comes a pocket video camera that doesn’t have to be used for the filming of the contents of your pockets (pretty sure we’ve done that joke before, but hey, it’s a ZINGER!) or indeed the outsides of your pockets or stuff that is nowhere near your pockets. Like if you’re naked or something.

Erm, anyway, it’s the Kodak Pocket Video Camera ZX1 and it’s red and it’s £47.99 delivered. If the blurb is to believed, you can take “stunning 720p HD videos rain or shine with this weather-resistant recorder. Great results in bright light or low light easily edit create upload to YouTube with built-in software.” Never doubt the blurb.

Finally, another recurring classic that has regular dips in its price, today being another of those dip-days. It’s the Nintendo Wii console and it’s the package that also contains a controller and a nunchuk as well as Wii Sports Resort.

It’s only £129.00 and comes in both black and white colours, although you’re within your legal rights if you want to paint it a different colour once you’ve bought it. Or wrap it in clingfilm and keep it in a chest freezer. Or tie it to the back of your car and drag it around the streets for a couple of hours. You might invalidate your warranty though.

(deals found by HUKD members Borat, Paul542 and wellsie)

We didn’t post anything about the iPhone yesterday. Or that may have been the day before. Anyway, to make up for our obvious lapse, there’ll be at least two Apple related stories today. Yes, you’re very welcome.

If there’s been a recession over the past year, nobody told Steve Jobs. Last night Apple announced their most profitable quarter ever – profits were up 46 per cent in the three months to the end of September, compared to the same period last year. Revenue also increased 25 per cent year on year.

Apple sold over 3 million Macs in the three months, a 17 per cent unit increase. And nobody has tired of the Jesus Phone, despite the letdown surrounding the 3GS release – sales of the iPhone rose 7 per cent to 7.4 million units. Sales of the iPod fell 8 per cent, but sales of the iPod Touch increased 100 per cent, meaning customers must be deserting the likes of the Classic and Shuffle in droves.

“We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010,” said Jobs, though some analysts think they’ll be updates for the MacBook and iMac announced before Christmas. More iPhonesque news later. You love it, you do.

You know what, it’s been too long since we had a good old iPhone story around these parts, so here’s a scorcher for you. Hot on the heels of the Beatles version of the game, a Rock Band app is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch later this month.

The game will be designed for you to play alone or with as many as three other friends, colleagues, companions, acquaintances or even strangers (!) via Bluetooth. You’ll have the choice of playing guitar, drums, bass or singing vocals, and you’ll almost certainly look like a complete twatbasket while you’re at it.

Among the 20 tracks to be included in the game will be…

Beastie Boys – ‘Sabotage’
Blink-182 – ‘All The Small Things’
Blondie – ‘Hanging on the Telephone’
Foo Fighters – ‘Everlong’
George Thorogood & the Destroyers – ‘Bad to The Bone’
Motorhead – ‘Ace of Spades ‘08′
Pixies – ‘Debaser’
Smashing Pumpkins – ‘Cherub Rock’
Steve Miller Band – ‘Take The Money and Run’
Bronski Beat – ‘Hit That Perfect Beat Boy’

The price is yet to be announced but we confidently predict that it’ll cost somewhere in between the equivalent of a Cadburys Fredo bar and a collection of rare birds’ eggs.

You’ve been asking for more Apple-related posts on Bitterwallet and we’re always happy to oblige you, the kind reader. So here’s the motherlode; if you missed this evening’s keynote event which saw the return of liver-rich Steve Jobs, here are the highlights:

- new firmware; OS 3.1 for the iPod Touch with new features, including Genius for apps – Genius will suggest apps based on the apps you own

- 30,000 ringtones from major labels will be available for the iPhone, priced at $1.29 (UK price – probably 99p, we’d guess)

- iTunes 9, which should be available this evening and includes:

• Genius mixes
• improved syncing
• the ability to share songs between authorised computers
• app management (drag, drop and delete apps, move between pages)
• iTunes LP (known previous as Cocktail) – interactive photos, videos,  memorabilia, chronology, liner notes and all that old stuff that the elderly will remember getting with LPs when music was still music and had a tune you could hum, etc
• iTunes Extras, which are DVD-style bonus features for films
• arrows next to the buy buttons which let you gift items, add them to a wishlist or share on Facebook or Twitter

- a 64GB iPod Touch for $399 (£279, perhaps) as well as a 32GB for $299 and a new entry level price for the 8GB Touch at $199 (probably £149 in the UK, we reckon)

- the iPod Classic gets a memory upgrade – 160GB for $249

- the iPod Shuffle is available in new colours at a new price – $59 for 2GB, $79 for 4GB and a stainless steel 4GB special edition for $99

- Apple takes on the Flip, by adding a video camera to the iPod Nano, with one-click send to YouTube; it’ll also have a voice recorder app, a pedometer, external speaker and an FM radio. The 8GB will be $149, the 16GB is $179.

Photos from CrunchGear - thanks to MacFormat for the live blog!

The world has spun slightly off its axis this morning as the Spotify mobile phone app has appeared, sitting there begging for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android platform users to download it for free and access a portable world of six million tracks.

Spotify’s head honcho Daniel Ek has told Sky News how it works, saying: “For example, you can see all tracks by Madonna, which albums she has, which artists match her. You can press any track and it starts playing instantly. You also have playlists, which can be stored on your phone, so they also work on the Tube or anywhere that you can’t get reception.”

Up to 3,333 tracks can be stored for offline play and playlists can be updated through your Spotify account on your computer and then transferred across to your phone at your leisure.

The major snag is that the service is only available to Spotify premium subscribers who pay a tenner a month, but is that really so bad when you look at the range of music you get to choose from?

We’re off to fire it up now. Breakfast, getting dressed and doing toilets can all wait on this day of all days…

[EDIT] To celebrate, we’ve created a Spotify playlist for you lot to stick some of your favourite songs on. Go on, let us into your souls and give us the tunes that make your lives worth living.

So there’s definitely an Apple keynote occurring on Wednesday 9th September. Definitely. No two ways about it. No arguments. Bitterwallet’s invite has not turned up yet, although we can confirm it will look like this if it ever does:

Everything else is a matter of speculation. Except that chick is definitely holding an iPod, not a tablet device. Balls. It’s likely that new versions of the iPod Nano, iPod Classic and iPod Touch will be announced, all featuring cameras. It’s possible that Apple will announce a new version of iTunes with social media functionality, because you just don’t have enough of that in your lives, do you?

Appleinsider also points out that The Beatles are re-releasing their entire back catalogue and The Beatles: Rock Band on that date, so perhaps the Fab Four will finally debut in the iTunes Store. If that was the case, the use of a Rolling Stones lyric doesn’t make a lick of sense. More news, rumours and lies as we get them.

[Apple Insider]

Yes, it’s true! We can scarcely contain our excitement! The App Store is one year old on Saturday, so to celebrate we’re throwing a street party and you’re all invited! Can’t get along? Then no doubt you’ll want to organise your own to celebrate. Here are some hints to get you started:

• Get together with some neighbours and plan the party. Share out the tasks; don’t try and do it all yourself. There’s an app for that. Quite a few, actually.

• Decide where the party is going to be. It’s best to get together in somebody’s garden, driveway or house, but try and choose somewhere you can steal a neighbour’s wifi to download new apps.

• Think about the food and drink. Do you want a BBQ or sandwiches and cakes? After all, we all love apps but we can’t eat them!

• Think about the ages of your neighbours. How are you going to occupy them? Is anybody good at face painting, for example? Of course they’re not. They’ll only look like an sad lonely tiger that doesn’t own an iPhone. Best to share yours and let them play a new game from the App Store.

• Go round to see your neighbours the weekend before and give them a final reminder of what you’re planning. Try and make sure you don’t have too many duplicate apps between you, or you’ll spoil the fun of comparing countless pages of crap you’ve bought and never used.

To be honest, we were taking aback that the new iPhone 3GS sold several jillion units in its first few days. Plenty of mentalist Apple fanboys defied all laws of common sense and paid to cancel their existing 3G contracts, signed up to another 18 month contract – that’ll still have six months to run when the next handset is released – then spent even more money on the 3GS handset itself. There were plenty of new customers too, but when the 3G is far cheaper (or free) and the 3GS failed to offer a huge amount of new functionality, well. People are stupid, as has often been noted.

We’re not surprised, however, that next-to-none of the millions of iPod Touch owners have bothered downloading the new 3.0 firmware. Advertising firm AbMob, which places ads into iPhone applications, reports that they’re seen just 1% of activity from iPods with 3.0 firmware since it was released a fortnight ago.

There are probably two key reasons: while it’s free to iPhone owners, those with a Touch have to fork out £6, and because most of what the 3.0 update has to offer is next-to-pointless for an iPod. The fact is that nearly all the new features in Apple’s new firmware (and there are plenty of them) are only of use if you have a regular wi-fi connection – otherwise there’s little to enhance the user’s experience of music, video or applications.

It’s a well and truly dropped bollock by Apple, but you can bet your life that they’ll find a way to squeeze the money out of you; sooner or later there’ll be a mandatory iteration that’ll render your iPod obsolete without it. Alternatively, Apple could get off their fat collective arses and work on some improvements that are worth paying for.

[Electricpig]

You love Apple. You love iPhones. You love iPhone apps. You love them so much you bought the I’m Rich application for $999 and still have realised what a prize twat that makes you. You have hundreds of the little bastards in your phones, to the point you’ve no more screens to display them on. Yet you keep buying iPhone applications, deleting the old ones as you go.

But you’re not the only one. There are thousands of you. Millions of you. So how does all that stupidity look from Apple’s point of view? When 50 million iPhone users are pissing money up the wall on virtual fart machines and animated Chuck Norris kung-fu video games, what do they see?

Unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco on Monday, the television that Steve Jobs has fitted to his bedroom ceiling. The 20 cinema displays display the 20,000 best selling apps – when one is purchased, it oscillates in a highly pleasurable manner. It’s the sight of a metric fuckton of money raining into Apple’s bank account every second:

For videos of this pleasure-pumping technology at work, check out Apple Insider.

[Apple Insider]

There are a number of price comparison services for your mobile that can help you comparison-shop without driving around or phoning all over the place. Some work with any handset, and others specifically go with certain brands of handsets. Here are a few of the price comparison services that work on mobiles:

1. Twenga: Twenga is a shopping comparison search engine. Available in 13 countries including the UK, it searches through 137 million offers. Twenga means “straight to the goal” in an African dialect.

Twenga offers unique user features like historical price tracking and personalized recommendations. There is no merchant bias because unlike engines that operate on commercial partners, Twenga works through commercial ad placements.

Its ‘natural’ search engine, ranked by user criteria, is still slightly buggy: Twenga grabs eBay listings, and suffers from false sensitivity on searches. The free mobile application is available for download from the iTunes App Store.

2. ShopSavvy: For those with the T-Mobile G1, ShopSavvy is a free app available for the Android platform. It was one of the winners of the Google Challenge, and it helps you find items based on bar codes or title. The built-in Android camera reads the barcode, and searches through its database to find a listing both locally and online based on your GPS location. Each item searched for is saved in history, and you can also move it to a wishlist which helps you organise your searches. You can also email yourself links you find, and it even connects you up with reviews for movies, games, books, and music. You can set a price alert for when the price of whatever you’re coveting drops to within your budget.  Compared to Twenga, its organisational and extra features make it standout, and may give the iPhone a run for the money. Click here to watch a demo.

3. Sccope: For those that prefer SMS, Sccope does price comparisons using text messages with no charge beyond what you pay for texts (although your network operator may charge an “interactive text” fee, typically between 10p and 12p). Text the name or model number of the thing you want to 62555. The service should reply with a list of prices for model number searches, or a list of likely search results for product searches. With product searches, text back the model number associated with the product you want and you’ll get a text back with prices. The Sccope site has an interactive phone emulator you can use to see how it works. Categories in Sccope include games, books, DVDs, electronics, small appliances, large electricals and toys. They do not provide price comparison on financial, travel or insurance products. You can email them and let them know what categories you would like included with the next category expansion.

4. Others: Kelkoo, the price comparison search site most of us have heard of, has a very simple site designed just for your mobile phone that you can access with your mobile phone’s browser. It consists of a simple search box in which you type your search terms. And there’s also PriceRunner, which checks and compares millions of prices on the web and in brick and mortar stores to help you find the best price. PriceRunner also has a free software download for your mobile phone that allows you to compare prices. Download via the PriceRunner Mobile site.

Have you tested any of the above, and have an opinion? Are there any other useful mobile price comparison services you’ve used or come across?  Please share them in the comments box below!

There are now over 25,000 applications on the iPhone, and while most of them are as useful as chip pan fat for whores, there are a few that stand out. If the developers themselves don’t release a demo on YouTube, you can always rely on somebody else to do it for them. With that in mind, here’s a sift through some of the hundreds of apps released recently. Some are good, some are shit, frankly:

iBone – the Pocket Trombone (£1.79)
No, stop it right now, it’s not that sort of app. It’s a virtual trombone that allows you to accompany songs with a flick and slide of your finger, or by blowing across your iPhone. Judging by the interface you need to know something about music to put it to good use, but there are also scales you can practise if you’d like to learn.

Make Money Online (£2.39)
“My name is Sven Schöne and listen. I live in this dump and wear sweatbands like it’s 1987, but I don’t care. What you say? Listen. Look at Oogle, it’s full of free resources. Scams. I want to show you this programme called Make Money Online. All it takes is a small investment from you, I give you a list of bookmarks you could find by using your eyes, but then I could not get rich, yeah? My company is called iJokeEntertainment, but I am serious, yeah? It took me one and a half years to put this together, even though the App Store has been around just nine months, yeah?”

Tap Tap Coldplay(£2.99)
Tap Tap Revenge is often cited as one of the best and most popular applications for the iPhone. Well now they’ve gone and spoilt it by releasing a version dedicated to the descending star of Coldplay. And they’re charging you £2.99 for the pleasure. Good on them. At least we have the nasal, bedroom-bound tones of reviewer NJ Devil Fan to stop us topping ourselves while our ears scab over in disgust. Oh.