Remember the heady days of music sales, when Apple beat the stuffing out of traditional music labels, even besting retail giant Wal-Mart as the No. 1 seller of music? Well, the Cupertino, Calif. company still leads, but the growth of music is slowing and appears to be giving way to video.

Revenue from digital music sales for the last three months of 2010 were up just 1.6 percent for Apple, falling 5 percent from the previous quarter, according to a Tuesday report. Although Apple’s digital music sales are slowing, Warner Music Group appears even further along the S-Curve; the publisher’s last quarter sales fell 14 percent, the company announced. For Apple, the next thing is digital video, where one research firm says the tech giant controls almost 65 percent of the sales.

Apple just delivered a small but welcome tweak to the Mac App Store: a window that pops up when you click “Purchase” next to an app, asking you to confirm your decision.

Depending on whether or not, like me, you’ve accidentally bought a $50 piece of software on the Mac App Store through the errant click, you’ll find this either a welcome prophylactic against your own casual stupidity, or an irritant that doubles the clicking required to actually get the app you want.

Unfortunately, if it’s the latter for you, the Mac App Store doesn’t allow you to toggle the purchase confirmation off, as in the iOS App Store, so you’ll just have to live with the redundancy for now.

If you’re on an iOS device, today’s Google logo is pretty neat. Simulating the brass-plated portcullises of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus in order to celebrate Jules Verne’s birthday, the logo will read your iPhone or iPad’s accelerometer and slosh around the subaquatic view accordingly.

If you’re on a laptop or a device without an accelerometer, no problem: a handy joystick next to the logo will simulate the effect.

It’s a rough world when it comes to couples who mix computer choices: one partner spends a lot of time trying to “convert” the other, most of the time unsuccessfully.

Mostly Mac users, who just can’t let this PC-using habit alone: a micro-survey found that 80% of Mac fans tried to convince their significant other to switch, but only 60% successfully “converted” them.

These are the water-cooler takeaways from a poll about Macs and PC couples, timed of course for that most noxious of holidays, St. Valentine’s Day. Poll organizers Parallels, who ran the survey to promote their solution for running Windows applications on Macs, said they had some 30 respondents.

The reactions poll respondents had when discovering their potential partners were PCs are pretty funny – you could almost insert owning a PC with some other undesirable habit (smoking?)

“I knew he could be changed.”

“I feared there may be more ‘tech support’ than ‘love support’ desired.”

We had a couple of questions for each other having met on-line on our first brunch date. She said she was currently a Windows users, but she had used a Mac in college for Desktop Publishing, there was hope…”

What do you think – does this bear out your PC/Mac relationship experience? “

Or perhaps this digital divide is a valid reason to sign up for Apple-dating service Cupidtino, which only matches up people who love Macs with other Mac lovers.

Via Parallels

Evidence continues to mount that Apple will release the next refresh of the MacBook Pro line soon, with Best Buy’s internal inventory system already showing a new 13-inch MacBook Pro for $1199 that will be in stock come March 11th.

If Best Buy’s inventory is accurate, it further stresses the likelihood that the new MacBook Pros will use Intel’s dual-core Sandy Bridge chips, which are due to start shipping on February 20th.

Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture promises faster performance in both computing and integrated graphics power, all the while maximizing power efficiency. It is the successor to Intel’s Arrandale mobile processor line, which Apple failed to adopt for the last MacBook refresh, instead depending upon the aging Core 2 Duo processor.

It is unknown what other changes the new MacBook Pros will integrate, but given Tim Cook’s comments that the MacBook Air is the future of the MacBook line, a slimmer footprint, SSD options and instant-on ability seem like the most reasonable guesses. What are your predictions?

Verizon Wireless may have sold 500,000 iPhones on the first day the Apple handset became available on Feb. 3, a JPMorgan analyst told investors Tuesday. The estimate is based on the carrier’s statement it had sold more iPhones in the first two hours than were sold on any of its previous first day events.

Analyst Phil Cusick said Verizon’s previous one-day sales record was when Google’s Droid handset became available in 2009. If Cusick’s estimate is correct, Apple is on path to break its previous first weekend sales record of 1 million sales set with the last two iPhone versions.

In just four months, Instagram has already pooled together a user base of over two million daguerro-hipsters, who are now responsible for uploading up to 300,000 photos a day. That’s a success by anyone’s measure, so it’s no surprise that Instagram is looking to keep their momentum going by expanding in interesting ways.

In a blog post, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom explains how the company intends to grow: by opening up the site to other developers and let them hook into the Instagram ecosystem thanks to a new API.

Reading between the lines of Reggie Fils-Aime’s most recent criticism of the App Store, Nintendo is deeply afraid of Apple’s influence on the video games industry: the president of Nintendo of America says that the price levels of the App Store have created a consumer “mentality” that portable games should only cost a few dollars.

Fils-Aime’s comments come even as Nintendo prepares to launch its new handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS, in March.

Apple’s latest iPhone 4 launched especially for use on Verizon’s CDMA network has already been given the teardown treatment by our friends over at iFixit, and their findings have revealed that the revised device packs a redesigned vibrator, and changes to the location and design of RF components. However, the most surprising discovery is the Qualcomm MDM6600 chip, which is dual-mode GSM and CDMA compatible.

The use of this particular chip, which also features in the Motorola Droid Pro, signifies that the iPhone 5 will surely be dual-mode, allowing Apple to ship one handset for both Verizon and AT&T, as well as every other carrier in every other country.

The full iFixit teardown of the Verizon iPhone 4 is certainly worth a read, buy you can check out our highlights from the teardown after the break!

Our friends at 9to5Mac have torn down the Verizon iPhone and found a tasty surprise: it’s based on a GSM world phone-compatible chip!

The VZW iPhone is based on the Qualcomm MDM6600 chip, which is dual-mode GSM and CDMA compatible. That means the iPhone 5 will also surely be dual-mode, allowing Apple to ship one handset for both Verizon and AT&T, aw well as every other carrier outside the U.S.

9to5Mac: Verizon iPhone tear-down posted, reveals Qualcomm Gobi chip! (GSM Worldphone compatible!)

While the long-awaited delivery of the Verizon iPhone has been the big story of the week, evidence continues to mount that another semi-mythical model of the iPhone 4 might be dropping at almost the same time, at least if this Best Buy shelf sticker for the 16GB iPhone 4 is anything to go by.

Other than this shot and the fact that Canada’s The Source chain of retail outlets are also gearing up to sell the white iPhone 4, about the only concrete knowledge to be gleaned here is that the white iPhone 4 will be selling for $599, which is the same off-contract price as the black iPhone 4.

Keep calm, everyone: you only have a few more weeks to wait until the white iPhone 4 is yours… just a few months before the white iPhone 5 makes you wish you’d never bought a new phone more than halfway through the lifecycle of the previous gen!

Worried that your Verizon iPhone might not be as jailbreakable as the AT&T version? Don’t sweat it: as it turns out, the Verizon iPhone shipping to customers this week with iOS 4.2.6 works with the same GreenpoisOn utility that Chronic released over the weekend for untethered jailbreaks under iOS 4.2.1.

Of course, once iOS 4.3 comes out, everything’s likely to change again, so if you’re going to jailbreak your new Verizon iPhone… better get it in under the wire while you still can.

There’s a flurry of conflicting reports today on when the next iPad will debut – we have heard that the next iteration of the magical device will be unveiled in March or June at the WWDC.

Make your guess in the comments, along with the reason you think why Apple would choose that date.

Five correct answers, randomly chosen (though we admit some bias for the funny ones), will win promo codes for cool iPhone or iPad apps.

If you prefer to use Twitter as a source of interesting news stories throughout the day, you should try Smartr, a free app by Factyle that filters all of the cat updates and #cairo hashtags from your Twitter stream and instead serves up an attractive and uncluttered collection of the articles your friends and followers are linking, complete with page preview and summary. You can then easily read those articles, retweet them, or even push them to Instapaper to read later.

Smartr’s a fantastic looking app, and best of all, it’s free. Give it a try.

As predicted, Apple’s Mac App Store is already a huge success, driving sales through the roof for the small Mac developers who have already taken part even as Cupertino rakes in thirty percent off the top. Needless to say, the Mac App Store’s success indicates that Apple would eventually like to use it to drive most if not all of Mac software sales… and part of making that happen is to start downplaying the role of boxed software in the Mac ecosystem while emphasizing the Mac App Store as a central hub for OS X digital distribution.

No surprise, then, that Apple is already planning on getting rid of boxed software at their retail locations and directing customers to the Mac App Store instead, where Apple makes better margins on software sold.

Here’s a great tip that’s doing the rounds today. Chris Bowler uses his copy of Transmit as a file browser, because it has two viewing panes built-in, and lets you browse local files in each.

Anyone who has got tired of constantly having to open two adjacent Finder windows to transfer files from one place to another will see why this is a great idea.

Transmit comes with a handful of shortcuts for quick access to your Home folder, Desktop, or Documents folder. It also has a favorites feature – just drag any folder to the starred icon at the far left of the breadcrumb trail at the top of each pane. It also supports the Finder’s four different viewing modes (thumbnails, list, columns and CoverFlow). Great tip if you already have Transmit (or a similar two-pane FTP browser – anyone got any suggestions?) installed.

(Hat-tip to Minimal Mac for the link.)

Landing in the iOS App Store tomorrow is Index Card v2 for iPad, a multi-touch version of the corkboard-and-index-cards system popular with screenwriters and others who need to arrange multiple ideas within a project.

Inspired by the Corkboard feature of Scrivener for Mac (the Scrivener people know), Index Card allows users to move cards around, label by color, and even write on the back of cards (the ‘flip’ arrow changes color if there’s something written on the back).

This latest version adds a trio of new features: Stacks, customizable label names, and the option to export notes with the rest of your project to RTF for Word or Final Draft.

Testing the app last week, I found it to be responsive and easy to use. It does exactly what it it promises.

That said, at least on the surface, Index Card is very much about the needs of screenwriters. Developer DenVog would do well to add options in its next release to make the app more appealing to general productivity users. More backgrounds than just cork and solid black would also be welcome.

I can’t say I use index cards in my daily life, but for those that do, Index Card should prove practical. The app already counts a couple of Emmy-nominated producers as users.

William N. Fordes, a Co-Executive Producer/Writer on Law & Order, tells me that he finds Index Card “superb” and “well thought out”.

“The ease with which the individual cards can be moved around is terrific, and makes rethinking the shuffle of scenes so much easier,” he says.

Despite the fact that the iPad is seemingly the perfect medium for their frenetic space warfare RTS, Blizzard has so far resisted all calls to release an iOS specific game or port of their famous Starcraft series of games… but hey, why bother when those franchise rip-off artists extraordinaire over at Gameloft will do it for you?

Check out this new trailer for GameLoft’s upcoming iOS RTS, Starfront: Collision, and marvel at the admittedly well-realized shamelessness. It’s pretty much identical to Starcraft II right down to the choice of races, the UI, the graphics, the units… even the font!

When he first showed off OS X Lion last year, Steve Jobs explained Apple’s reluctance to add multitouch displays to their line of iMacs by saying that multitouch needed to be horizontal to be pleasant to use. Use it in a vertical position and you’re always leaning forward to poke and prod the screen, leading to what Steve Jobs calls “gorilla arm.” That’s why Apple has only brought multitouch to the Mac through peripherals like the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. Even so, some patents have shown up over the past year that suggest that Apple’s been experimenting with multitouch-capable iMacs with pivoting displays that pull down to a more appropriate horizontal orientation when a user wants to interact with on-screen elements directly.

If you want to see what such an iMac might look like in the flesh, though, check out HO’s latest TouchSmart PC. Look familiar? Yup, that’s right: it features a pull-down design that drops the multitouch display into a horizontal position to reduce arm fatigue… just like in Apple’s patent!

We start another week with deals for the iMac, iPad and iPod. First up is an iMac bundle. This Core i3 desktop machine runs at 3.06GHz and includes a 22-inch screen and 16GB of RAM. Also part of the bundle is a three-year AppleCare contract — all for just $1,497. Next is a pink faux leather iPad case with screen protector, magnetic closure and more. We wrap up today’s deal spotlight with 83 percent off on select iPod touch cases.

Along the way, we also take a look at other cases for the iPhone, as well as software for your Mac. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

If iPhoto leaves you cold, or perhaps doesn’t run so well on your older Mac, there aren’t many options for a similar application that combines photo editing and photo library management. Not many, except for Picasa.

Google’s free photo app is a great alternative to iPhoto, generously packed with features and a good choice for people who want to quickly upload photos to the web.

In most respects, it compares very well to iPhoto, including features like face recognition and geolocation data. It comes with a selection of quick edit presets, and easy (but basic) slider controls for detailed editing.

What’s particularly nice about Picasa, though, is its speed. It roars through photo libraries that leave rival photo managers struggling to catch up. On first run, it will zip through your iPhoto library – not copying any files (so don’t worry about disk space) – but indexing all your data there and building up its own copy of the iPhoto library.

Picasa is one of those things it makes sense to have around. It’s free, it’s packed with useful stuff, and even if you don’t put it to immediate use, there might yet come a day when you’ll be glad you have it to hand.

(You’re reading the 28th post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more, or grab the RSS feed.)

Port police in Los Angeles busted a counterfeit iDevice operation with a warehouse full of fakes with an estimated market value of $10 million.
“This was a well-funded operation, and the counterfeits looked very authentic,” said Ron Boyd, chief of the approximately 200-member L.A. Port Police force, adding that a buyer might not have noticed anything awry until he or she got home and tried to hook up with iTunes.

Police believe the fakes were shipped in from China as replacement parts then reassembled them. The two brothers arrested and charged with felony counts for the sale of counterfeit goods in charge of the operation may have thought they could fly under the radar with older-model fakes, still in demand by some consumers. (Personal aside: I still have both of those iPod Nano models and am clinging to them because of the storage, battery life and light weight.)

It’s not often Wall Street analysts use farming analogies to explain technology stocks. However, Needham & Co.’s Charlie Wolf Monday points to the growth rate of hybrid corn to explain the rocketing popularity of Apple’s iPad tablet. Indeed, the analyst expects 35 million of all sorts of tablets will sell in 2011 – 90 percent carrying the Apple logo.

Like the growth of hybrid corn in the 1920s, outlined in Everett Rodgers’ The Diffusion of Innovations, Wolf sees the iPad as only the latest technology following the “S-Curve” of slow early growth, followed by faster expansion, then slowdown. Computers followed this growth pattern in the 1980s, as well as the iPod.

Mark your calendars: the next iPhone will be revealed sometime between June 5th and June 9th, 2011, as Apple has already booked those dates at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for this year’s WWDC.

Although the Moscone Center’s website officially lists the early June event name as a “Corporate Meeting,” this anonymous description is usually deployed by Moscone Center management to refer to Apple events.

Apple’s next iPhone is traditionally announced at each year’s WWDC event held at the Moscone Center sometime in June.

Note: Jonathan Zschau is a Boston-based attorney and a specialist in consumer rights.

UPDATE: SquareTrade has objected to some of the statements and characterizations in this article. The company has some good points, which are published in full here.

As well as a good case or bumper, should you buy an extended service plan to protect your iPhone?

These service contracts are commonly referred to as “extended warranty plans,” “protection plans,” or “insurance plans” and promise to insure your iPhone from defect, accidental damage, and sometimes loss or theft.

The problem with extended service contracts is that they don’t offer you much more than you are already entitled to through your iPhone’s warranty, AppleCare, or existing consumer protection laws.

Although these service contracts do offer additional protection from accidental damage, theft, or loss they are also fraught hidden conditions, exclusions, and deductibles, which ultimately detract from their utility. Except for a very small minority of unusually accident-prone iPhone owners, these extended service contracts are a waste of money.