We start off the day with two deals from the iPhone App Store. First is a number of free applications, including “Taxi Check,” a new way to check prices on taxi rides. Next is a new crop of price cuts on iPhone apps, including “I Just Forgot,” a Little Critter children’s book. We round out today’s spotlight with a deal on Apple’s Remote Desktop 2 software – just $70.

Along the way, we’ll also check out some Xserve servers and some Adobe Photoshop software utilities for your Mac. As usual, you can find details at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple’s blowout holiday quarter included the sale of more than 16 million iPhones.

That may seem like a lot, but look at the chart above from The Atlantic: it looks like Apple’s just getting started.

In the last two quarters, Apple sold 30 million iPhones — half of what it sold in the previous three years (60 million units). In other words, iPhone sales are starting to seriously kick up.

Some analysts predict 100 million iPhones sold next year. Yeah, that’s right: One. Hundred. Million.

That’s a big frickin’ number.

Apple just concluded their Q1 2011 earnings call, and while Steve Jobs may be taking a leave of absence, he’s leaving his company in good shape: Apple has just had their best quarter ever, racking in over $26.7 billion in revenue, a number which blows away even the most optimistic Wall Street projections.

In Q1 2011, Apple managed to sell 16.24 million iPhones, which was a new record for the company. Even more impressively, they sold 7.33 million iPads over the holiday period, which was over 3 million more than the previous quarter.

On the Mac side, Apple sold 4.13 million Macs, a strong growth of 23 percent year-over-year, largely buoyed by the runaway success of the new MacBook Air. iPod sales, on the other hand, were down 7 percent year-over-year, continuing a steady decline.

Steve Jobs did not appear during the conference call, nor was his health referenced. However, he did provide a quote for the press release, saying: ““We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Apple projects $22 billion in revenue for next quarter, as well as earnings per share of $4.90. Given Apple’s history surprising its shareholders, it’s probably going to be a lot more.

The era of AT&T iPhone exclusivity may be dismissed as a time full of dropped calls and dinosaur-like competitiveness, but the period marked dramatic change for the Cupertino, Calif. company. Once known for its Macs and iPods, Apple received nearly 40 percent of its 2010 revenue from iPhone sales, generating $45.6 billion, according to the company in September.

Analysts on average are predicting Apple will report next week selling 15.78 million handsets for the previous quarter, the last period Verizon iPhone sales won’t be included in the mix. And just which analysts are best at predicting iPhone sales? A new ranking of professional and amateur analysts was released, showing the am’s tend to score better than the pros.

Following Tuesday’s long-predicted announcement of a Verizon CDMA iPhone, one analyst sees Apple stock rising to $450 per share, up from a previous target price of $365. Peter Misek of Jeffreries & Co. seems to base his Wednesday note to investors on a belief the Cupertino, Calif. is not done surprising consumers.

Misek predicts Apple will unveil an iPhone for Long Term Evolution networks (sometimes known as 4G) by October, a GSM-based iPhone 5 in June and a 4G-based iPad in late 2011. Also, the analyst describes “multiple products to assault the living room” and cloud-based services also appearing this year.

The numbers have been creeping up in the past year, now new data from comScore shows that Android handsets have surpassed Apple in US market share. Android has captured the second largest share of the smartphone operating system market.

In the three-month period from August to November, Android OS market share shot up 6.4 percent, placing it at 26 percent. In that same period, use of the Apple OS grew by 0.8, leaving it slightly behind at 25 percent.

Google’s Android captured the number two spot among smartphone platforms in November, behind RIM with 33.5 percent, down 4.1 percent in the period studied. Microsoft and Palm made slight losses, ranking fourth and fifth with with 9.0 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.

Samsung is still the top original equipment manufacturer with 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.9 percentage points from the three month period ending in August. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (17.0 percent), RIM (8.8 percent) and Nokia (7.2 percent).

The bump in Android OS users comes at a time of growth in the the smartphone market. Some 61.5 million people in the U.S. now carry smartphones, that figure is up 10 percent from the preceding three-month period.

Interestingly, despite all the killer apps available for smartphones, text messaging remained the most used application. While  67 percent of smartphone owners sent text messages, just 35.3 percent used browsers on their phones, though the percentage increased slightly, up from 34.5 percent.

Source: comScore

Apple is now matching AT&T’s $49 price for the iPhone 3GS, a move taken quietly ahead of Tuesday’s widely-expected announcement that the carrier’s rival, Verizon, will sell the a CDMA version of the iPhone.

When AT&T made the announcement it was cutting $50 off the 3GS (however, still requiring a two-year contract), it pointedly said Apple online and retail stores would continue to set its own price for the device.

If a Verizon iPhone is announced Tuesday, as a weekend Wall Street Journal report suggests, the move could mean 9 million to 12 million more customers for Apple. However, if the carrier is able to do more than attract existing iPhone owners to switch from AT&T, the Cupertino, Calif. company could gain twice that figure, analysts predict.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said AT&T sold 14.5 million iPhones in 2010, comprising 30 percent of iPhone sales. Verizon should add 5 percent to that figure, Munster said.

If you are looking for Apple to introduce a new product, a good time period may be between the last week of January and the first half of February. The Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly has cancelled vacations for its retail employees during that period, a possible signal a new product launch is imminent.

Apple has ordered the so-called vacation “black-out” period of three weeks after retail managers began expressing “reluctance” to grant employee requests for days off for January, according to a blog citing “people familiar” with the firm’s retail plans.

We start with free and discounted iPhone applications, led by dueling weather apps. In the free corner is “The WeatherApp,” which provides weather alerts and updates. This is just one of the entries in the latest crop of freebies from the iPhone App Store. In the “discount” corner is “WeatherNow,” a weather and clock combo once sold for $4, but now yours for just $0.99. This is just one of several iPhone apps being offered at discounted prices.

Also on tap is a deal on Apple’s AppleTV. The 160GB model is going for $120. Along the way, we also check out various ways to keep your iPhone powered-up, as well as insured from spills and drops. There is also a deal on an OEM version of a Mac OSX update and other Mac software.

Like always, details on these and many other bargains can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.