There are several things Apple will need to address before they allow over-the-air updates. Currently, iOS updates are huge in terms of phone updates go. The current iPhone updates are well over 500mb. The overall size will need to be reduced to help speed up download times and reduce the cost of downloading that much data. There are also some rumors going around that there will be some type of a Cloud-based backup and restore system with the new iOS. Currently when you download an iOS update, iTunes creates a backup of your current iOS before installing the new one. Apple will need to provide a way for users to backup their iOS while not being connected to their computers. If Apple can resolve these issues, the over-the-air feature should be a major hit with consumers. Verizon will also need to be ready for the update feature. They will need to make sure that they are able to handle that much load on their data servers. They will also need to make sure that the consumer doesn’t pay an arm and a leg for the update download.

Android users are still enjoying their little bit of glory. Android users and Palm webOS user got this feature a long time ago. They appealed to the fact that you don’t always have a computer with you or a reliable connection. Apple seems to want to follow suit, and appeal to the person always on the go. However, some people believe that Apple should introduce over-the-air syncing first before the over-the-air updates. We will have to wait and see how the update goes, and how both companies handle their problems. The projected release date for iOS 5 and over-the-air updates feature is this summer.

While today marks the release of The Daily, the first newspaper designed specifically for the iPad, it actually marks a much more significant shift for Apple’s iOS platform. The Daily is also the first iOS App to feature native subscription billing, integrated with the iTunes store just like the in-app purchases that have been around since iOS 3.x was released back in 2009.

Apple updated the iTunes store terms and conditions just a short while ago with some of the finer details of how it all works.

Like most content in the iTunes Store, and like most Apps in the App store, subscription content sales are final, and there are no refunds.

Once you authorize the subscription, it will automatically bill you 24 hours before the next subscription period starts. So for instance if you choose to pay for The Daily on a weekly basis, you would be charged $0.99 one day before the next week starts.

In the event that the subscription price is raised by the content provider, automatic payments will be turned off by Apple until you have a chance to approve the new higher price.

Perhaps most importantly, Apple has built in a system for content providers to access your name, email address and the zip code of your billing address for marketing purposes, however you will be asked to authorize the release of your information before it is ever given out, and Apple specifically notes that if you decline to share your information with a content provider it will not affect your subscription or your purchase of that app.

While The Daily is the first App to make use of the new subscription billing system, it isn’t difficult to imagine other Apps doing the same thing with video content or music if Apple allows it.

We don’t have the full story on revenue sharing yet but we’ll update this story when we find out. It isn’t hard to imagine some content providers being unhappy with the idea of sharing up to 30% of their subscription fees with Apple either.

Keep your eyes open…..

In their 2011 lineup of HDTVs, Samsung is throwing a new universal remote into every box with a design you might just have seen somewhere before, since it looks almost exactly like the iPhone 4.

The Samsung RMC30D Universal Touch Control TV Remote may not have the iconic branding of the iPhone and iPod Touch designs that it is so successfully aping, but no matter: it’s still pretty impressive, boasting a three-inch touchscreen display that you can use to control the settings of, navigate content on, program settings for and launch apps on not just Samsung’s televisions, but other sets to boot (albeit with more limited functionality than with Samsung’s own D7000 series).

Some might consider this a fairly shameless swipe, but I love Samsung’s approach here. Presumably what they intend to do here is also launch a series of iPhone and Android remote apps, so that Samsung televisions can be controlled identically on a variety of mobile devices… and if you don’t have a PMP or smartphone yourself, they’ll be more than happy to sell you one of these RMC30D bad boys.

Heralded as one of the greatest comeback stories in business history, Jobs’ ascension brought his company from the brink of bankruptcy to Silicon Valley’s biggest success story. The profile notes that investors who put $1,000 into Apple stock at the end of 2000 would have seen it grow to nearly $43,000 today.

Jobs is also credited for “almost single-handedly” saving the recording industry with the iPod and iTunes. The profile also compares him to great inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as the visionary Walt Disney.

“He revolutionized handheld devices and touch-screen technology with the iPhone,” author Russ Britt wrote. “And he may well usher in a post-PC era of computing with his latest gadget, the iPad.”

It’s been a tremendous surge to the top for Apple, which was worth about $5 billion in 2000. In May, the Cupertino, Calif., company’s market capitalization exceeded Microsoft, making it the second largest American company. Apple’s market cap of $291.9 billion still has a long ways to go to catch Exxon, though, which is worth $360.3 billion.

In being name the MarketWatch CEO of the Decade, Jobs edged out a few of his rivals in the tech industry. Among the runners up were Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Other finalists were Starbucks CEO and Howard Schultz, and Tim Solso of Cummins.

Jobs did not, however, win the publication’s “CEO of the Year” honors. Alan Mulally of Ford was named the top chief executive for 2010.

This week’s announcement marks the second time that Jobs has been granted the title “CEO of the Decade.” In 2009, that honor was bestowed on him by Fortune, which referred to him as a “showman, a born salesman, a magician who creates a famed reality-distortion field, [and] a tyrannical perfectionist.”

“AirPlay only works for video in Apple’s iTunes movies app and the built-in YouTube app… it does NOT support video AirPlay in Safari (for web video), in third-party apps, or for video shot by the iPhone’s camera,” Frommer reports. “It’s audio-only for those apps.”

Frommer reports, “One theory, which [Daring Fireball’s John] Gruber floats, is that there could be technical issues preventing video AirPlay from working as desired from those apps… Another theory is that this isn’t a technical issue at all, but a business issue. Perhaps the networks — which Apple is trying to work with closely on things like iTunes, iPad apps, and maybe someday a subscription video service — pressured Apple to get rid of AirPlay video in Safari or third-party apps. At least, perhaps, until videos or apps could be selectively activated or de-activated.”

A new Xcode build and the corresponding iOS SDK is also available to paid developers.

The newly updated Apple TV hardware is also likely to be updated to iOS 4.2 at some point this month or early in December, however as there is no Apple TV developer program right now, Apple is not providing early access to iOS builds for that device.

As previously reported, the screen rotation lock button on the iPad is now going to be a mute button, which Apple mentions in the release notes for the iOS 4.2 GM seed:

The iPad screen rotation lock switch now functions as a sound/silent switch in iOS 4.2. This switch behaves the same way as the Ring/Silent switch on iPhone.

Those of you hoping that Apple would give users an option to change that button back to its previous function will be disappointed for now.

Also listed in the iOS 4.2 GM release notes is a short list of AirPrint compatible printers:

HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One Printer – C410
HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One Printer series – C310
HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One Printer series – B210
HP ENVY 100 e-All-in-One Printer Series – D410
HP Photosmart eStation Printer series – C510
Now that iOS 4.2 is out of beta status, expect a release of Mac OS X 10.6.5 to be announced in the near future, as an upgrade on the desktop is needed to support AirPrint when not using a printer that natively supports wireless printing from an iOS device.

More updates coming soon……

There is a lot of news surrounding the Apple iPad 2 with many asking about its release date, nothing is set in stone at the moment but it has been suggest release will be spring 2011.

Now we looked over on the Buzz Bizz News site and they say Spring 2011 even though this is not official like they state, do you think the Apple iPad2 will release in the spring of 2011?

The next-gen iPad is expected to feature two cameras, a front-facingcamera and a rear-facing camera, this means like the iPhone 4 you can have conference FaceTime calls using applications from the App Store, you will be able to do HD video recording.

Memory will be much better, multitasking has been suggested as well, which is good news if all true, could possibly feature a 2GHz processor possibly based on the ARM Cortex A9. Could the price be around about the same as the current iPad?

As regards to the new app via iTunes SkyFire, you know the app that coverts Flash Content is NOT available for the iPad as of yet, it has not yet been optimized yet. We will let you know as soon as it has been released for the Apple iPad.

It has an older CPU and skimpy RAM, but it is NOT underpowered. For users like me, who aren’t editing Hollywood movies, it’s more than adequate. Heck, it’s a huge leap forward. Like Jobs said at the launch, this is the future of notebooks. Extremely thin and light, yet capable of running dozens of applications without bogging down. There are compromises, of course, but the most important things — portability, durability and functionality — are very much in place.

Last year, I bought a 13-inch MacBook Pro, which I loved. But in comparison to the 11-inch Air, it looks like a bloated old relic. It’s positively primitive: a porky throwback to a previous computing era.

I know what you’re thinking, “Cult of Mac. This guy’s a zealot. He’ll buy anything Steve Jobs tells him too.” I admit, I’m a fan. But the Air is important. It’s different. It’s right up there with the iPad and the iPhone. This is a breakthrough product.

PORTABILITY

The machine’s as light as a feather and almost as thin as an iPhone. It weighs just 2.3lbs. It feels very, very light. It sits weightlessly in your lap. Holding it up, it feels as light as an iPad. I had to check the specs. The Air is actually 1lb heavier.

If it wasn’t 11-inches wide, it would easily slip into your jeans pocket. Compared to my old 13-inch MBP, it’s a like a piece of paper. Where the MBP becomes heavy in your backpack, you could tote the Air all day and it would be no more effort than wearing a wristwatch.

The biggest revelation about the 11-inch Air is its power. On paper, it looks weedy. Most people, us included, figured the processor is too slow and the RAM too little.

For reasons unexplained, Apple is using older Intel Core Duo chips (1.4GHz or 1.6GHz) instead of the latest i3 or i5 processors, which are found in the MacBook Pro.

It’s also skimpy on ram. The base model has just 2Gbytes. Bumping it to 4-Gbytes costs an extra $100. The MacBook Pros can take up to 8GBytes.

I picked up the low-end model: 2GBytes of RAM; 1.4GHz chip and 64GBytes of storage. I thought it would be underpowered. Big shocker — it isn’t.

In an initial test, I opened up 17 applications and launched more 40 tabs in Safari and 24 tabs in Google’s Chrome browser (each is its own separate process). A funny thing happened: nothing. It kept on cranking. There were no spinning beachballs, no stuttering in the music I was playing.

I opened three more Safari windows and 40 more tabs. At this point the RAM was completely overloaded. The Air had carved out 1.76GBytes of drive space for virtual memory. Now the music started stuttering. But then it resumed.

At this point, switching tasks caused the machine to pause for a few seconds as the new task swapped into memory. But it took only a few seconds, and the machine went back to normal.

This is in stark contrast to my MacBook Pro. When the RAM is full, it’s a beachball party until applications are quit or the machine is restarted. On the “underpowered” 11-inch toy computer MacBook Air, it was plain sailing.

In normal us, I often have a dozen or more apps open at the same time. I can easily have 50 or more tabs open in various browsers. It’s how I work, and it’s not changing. My Mac Pro at work is usually OK with this, and now my portable is too. Amazing that it’s half-an-inch thick.

WRAP-UP

The MacBook Air is a polarizing machine. Many critics, especially in the tech community, say it doesn’t do this or that. It doesn’t have a DVD drive. It doesn’t have FireWire or Ethernet. It’s not powerful enough.

But for the vast majority of consumers, it is powerful enough. And its compromises — the lack of an optical drive, for example — are irrelevant. If you haven’t moved on from optical media, you soon will be. It’s a streaming world these days.

At the rollout event, Jobs said: “‘We asked ourselves, ‘What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?’ Well, this is the result. … We think it’s the future of notebooks.”

Jobs is right. This machine is suitable for a wide swath of Apple’s customers. In 2008, the first MacBook Air was a high-design machine aimed at a narrow slice of the market. It was style over substance — a machine for reception desks at art galleries.

But the new Air is a mainstream machine. It’s suitable for students to take to classes all day, or a businessperson attending a week-long conference. For an information worker like me, it could be a main work machine. I can run my business on this.

This is what Apple does best: driving high-end technology down the line and superseding old products with better new ones.

This is the future of notebooks. The 11-inch Air blends extreme portability with surprising power.