The iTunes store is pulling off and putting on sexy apps faster than you can stuff a dollar bill in a g-string.
Case in point: the Hooter’s girls are back in bikinis to “clean” your iPhone screen. Hooters Calendar Screen Wash was quietly reinstated Feb. 24 and is now back on sale. The $0.99 app is for a +17 audience, though it doesn’t seem to be any more prurient or wholesome than some of the babes-in-bikini apps that were yanked over sexual content. Another five Hooters-related apps, from several different app makers, also appear to have been reinstated.

No one seems more surprised than the creators, On the Go Girls, who remarked on the company blog:
“Wow! Surprising! We are shocked!  Our Hooters Calendar Sexy Screen Wash was restored to the App Store last night 2am PST.”

No-name bikini apps still seem to be AWOL from the iTunes store, which makes me wonder whether it’s more a question of brand-name franchises like Playboy and Sports Illustrated flaunting their stuff than one of women complaining about them.

The App Store, not even two years old, has crossed the 100,000 mark for apps available to iPhone and iPod touch owners, Apple announced Wednesday. The milestone comes less than two months after the Cupertino, Calif. company said users downloaded more than 2 billion apps.

In September, the App Store reached 85,000 available applications.

God help us if Mac OS X ever has a system like the App Store policy. This time, Convertbot by Tapbots (a Cult of Mac favorite a while ago) was rejected. Its crime, as the image above shows, was using an icon for Time that Apple considers too similar to the one it uses for Recents.

Thing is, Tapbots just used a generic and insanely simple clock icon. Clearly, Apple—a company that bases a lot of its advertising on the fact smart people use Macs and Apple kit—thinks iPhone and iPod touch users are a bunch of f——ing morons, with no understanding of context. Perhaps they’re right and Cupertino has been inundated with frustrated iPhone users, repeatedly stabbing the Convertbot clock icon and yet not being able to access a recent calls list.

Somehow, we doubt it. Also, this icon’s the same one Convertbot’s had since the start—and this is the third point update to the app, and therefore the fourth time it’s been submitted. There were no problems at all the first three times.

With Philip Schiller’s email to John Gruber (regarding Ninjawords) and a similar communication to Panic’s Steven Frank, along with positive noises regarding C64 app finally being approved, we’re for once going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt on this (in that the decision is an isolated error). But here’s hoping things really are improving—that the Convertbot rejection is the blip, rather than the blip being Apple getting things right.

Ladies and gentlemen!

Take your seats! Blow your noses! Switch off your iPhones! The time is drawing near for the annual Exposition Of Wonder And Amazement that is: Macworld Expo!

Pray cease your wild applause, ladies and gentlemen. We are gathered to celebrate the ending of Another Round Of Mostly Incorrect Rumors, and to cheer on our Leader, His Lordship Steve of Jobs, as he fails to take the Stage of Reality Distortion and instead leaves the task to his minion, Phil “Igor” Schiller.

But before we embark on this journey of discovery, let us enjoy a few brief moments of quiet and calm. Let us take this opportunity to revel in some of the rumors and gossips that have slaked our thirst for actual Apple product news in recent weeks:

• iWork as a cloud app? I don’t think so. Well, iMovie then. Whaaaa? I can really see my ISP going crazy happy about people editing movie files over their pipes. More crazy than happy, though.
• iPhoto as an iPhone app? My iPhone crashes often enough as it is…
• How about a Red iPhone? I fear not with that font, dear friends, not with that font
• Updated Mac minis? Yes! Yes please!

Iiiiiin short: lots of waffle and claptrap. Some of it might even turn out to be true. Or so vague in the first instance that even the slightest mention of a product will validate the rumor.

Even though Steve won’t be on stage (which, as Leander has pointed out, isn’t necessarily a bad thing), the advice this year is the same as the advice every other year: sit back, relax, spend Tuesday with your loved ones, and worry about the keynote later. You can be sure that it will be summarized on one or two web sites. We might even mention it here.

Oh, and don’t buy any new Macs between now and tomorrow. But you knew that already.

(Picture: trialsanderrors, under CC License.)

Despite Apple’s attempt to convince investors otherwise, Oppenheimer & Co. told clients new questions about CEO Steve Jobs’ health made the Cupertino, Calif. company a risky long-term bet.

The investment house downgraded Apple’s stock to “perform” from “outperform” following Tuesday’s announcement Jobs would not appear as keynote speaker at the Macworld 2009 tradeshow – the last year Apple would attend the annual event.

“Whatever the reason, the unexpected announcement has underscored the greatest risk to Apple’s long-term success — its dependence on Jobs’ health and its apparent lack of a succession plan,” analyst Yair Reiner wrote investors.

Apple today announced that 2009 will be the last year the company exhibits at Macworld Expo.

Citing the declining efficacy of reaching its audience through participation in trade shows, the company issued a press release indicating Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo. Schiller’s will be Apple’s last keynote at the show, which held its debut event in 1985.

The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

With the increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website, the company is able to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in ways a trade show could never hope to.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.