Remember the recent story about the App Store being worth more than all of RIM? Here’s another astounding factoid: Just the top 200 most-grossing App Store entries generate four times the revenue than everything offered by the Android Marketplace. A new report also pegs China as a major App Store user, accounting for 30 percent of overall downloads and nearly half of iPad apps.

How many Android-powered devices are in use? Android promoter and Google Vice President Andy Rubin shed some light on the question Tuesday night. Rubin said 700,000 devices are being activated by carriers each day. However, the figure could confirm reports earlier this week that Android’s growth has slowed following a red-hot summer.

Back in the 80s, slacking off at the office was no more rare than it is today, but while these days most of our time that we should be working is spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs (thanks for that, by the way), in the 80s, it was more often than not spent gaming on your company PC.

Enter the Boss Key, a wonderful relic of covert 80s slacking. Let’s say you were playing a game on your company PC, and your boss walked by. By simply hitting a key on your button, you could instantly replace what was on the screen with a quasi-official looking spreadsheet, full of boring figures and dry analysis. When your boss left the environs of your cubicle, pushing the Boss Key again would allow you to plunge back into the game.

Neat, huh? Well, think of CovertChirp kind of like a Boss Key for iOS, except it doesn’t help your gaming stay undetected… it helps you covertly tweet.

Warner Bros. has updated the critically acclaimed Batman Arkham City Lockdown for iOS to add two new Batman skins, iCloud support, and to fix a number of minor bugs. While the new skins are certainly a treat, iCloud support is undoubtedly the most welcome feature for iOS gamers, who can now sync there game between their devices.

After the critical success of Audyssey’s South of Market dock last year, Audyssey eventually released their next product, the Lower East Side Media Speakers ($250), in October of this year.

This time, Audyssey has dropped the radical approach to design it used for the SOMA dock — with its unusual, back-to-back speaker configuration — in favor of a much more conventional, yet still attractive, form. Audyssey left three things unchanged though: Like the SOMA, the LES speakers exhibit a good deal of quality, and incorporate what Audyssey calls their “Smart Speaker” technology. And like the SOMA, these speakers are a bit pricier than their contemporaries. So the question is: Do they deliver?

Yesterday we told you about AT&T’s decision to back out of its proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile. After facing heated scrutiny and antitrust concerns from both the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice, AT&T couldn’t take the heat any longer.

As part of the deal falling through, AT&T has agreed to pay T-Mobile $3 billion in cash for breakup fees. The money combined with the two carriers’ spectrum and roaming deal makes T-Mobile the only winner of the failed merger.

Yesterday, we reported about an explosion at a Shanghai iPad 2 factory owned by Foxconn that injured 61 people, some seriously. It’s the second time in the last year an explosion has rocked an iPad 2 factory, and it’s now been seemingly confirmed that both explosions happened for the same reason: a build-up of aluminum dust in the factory area that eventually combusted.

One of the more useful features that Apple has introduced to the iTunes Store over the past couple years is the “Complete My Album” feature, which lets you take a single track of an album you like and easily upgrade to owning the full album. The only problem was it only worked for songs, when it seemed like a natural extension to take the functionality to TV shows.

Well, looks like Apple’s finally wised up. Now, if you have a couple of episodes of a show, you can “Complete My Season Pass,” which not only gets you the rest of the episodes of the season of that particular show at a substantial discount over buying the episodes individually. A welcome addition, I think.

[via MacRumors]

One of the biggest ways Apple has changed the world is by inspiring people across the globe to focus on great design. Take Rainer Spehl for example.

Rainer is a European furniture designer who, after purchasing a 12inch iBook in 2003, was so inspired by Apple’s design ambitions that he set out to create the perfect case for his new machine despite lacking any previous experience in case making. A series of prototypes were created and ideas where tossed around, but it wasn’t until five years later that he settled on a design that he loved. His passion for his craft would be inspiring to anyone and his products speak for themselves. His MacBook Pro cases are gorgeous.

Made from solid oak and lined with genuine cow-leather, the cases are friendly and subtle. Something that reunites nostalgia with the high-tech world of the present in a way that is comfortable and sincere. Rainer Spehl is a true master craftsman striving for perfection. It takes fives hours just to complete one case over the course of three days.

EA has kicked off a huge iOS sale that has seen dozens of popular games reduced to just $0.99 in a bid to top the App Store’s charts this Christmas. Some of the company’s hottest games are included, a number of which haven’t only just been released, such as Dead Space, FIFA 12, Tetris, and Trenches II.

Here’s the complete list of titles on sale for just $0.99!