Apple Opens Online Store for China

Apple announced Tuesday that it has launched an online app store for the China market, in a move to expand its presence in a sector it has ignored for years. Customers in China can now order the iPhone 4, iPad, and other Apple products online and arrange for delivery to their home or work location. Previously, iPhone buyers had to order the handsets on Apple's Chinese website and pick them up at one of the company's four mainland flagship stores in Beijing or Shanghai.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company said customers must have dual-currency credit cards in order to make purchases within the store, which most citizens do not own.

The opening of an online store for the China market represents a major step taken by Apple to make inroads in a burgeoning global market. Though Apple is dominant in the U.S., it ranks only fifth in the country, holding only a 5.9 percent share of the market and trailing Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Apple, however, has been steadily growing its presence in China, opening two new flagship stores last month in Beijing and Shanghai, bringing its total to four retail outlets. The iPhone 4 launch in China this past September also saw hundreds of customers lined up outside stores.

The device is hugely popular in the region, and Apple now requires customers to reserve an iPhone 4 on the company site in order to buy it at one of its retail locations. But customers using the online store will only need to wait one to two weeks to get their hands on the device.

With Apple opening a Chinese-language version of its online store, the company is clearly hoping to capitalize upon consumer interest in its products in a market that will only get bigger and more profitable.

Nimbuzz Launches Free Iphone Application

Nimbuzz, the most comprehensive mobile Instant Messaging, (geo) presence and VoIP provider launches into the Apple iPhone App Store. The free application lets users call, chat and message, for free, with their friends on virtually all major instant messaging communities and social networks, including Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, and more. Specifically for the needs of iPhone users, this will be the first complete messaging product available with landscape mode chat, IM buddy calling (including Yahoo!), and regional social network support – and it is free. Users turn the product on its side to use a wide keyboard for fast and easy typing. Furthermore, Nimbuzz is the first product to offer IM buddy calling over Wifi to Yahoo! Messenger as well as Google Talk, Skype, and Windows Live Messenger.

Nimbuzz supports chat for local social networks, such as StudiVZ, the biggest German speaking social network, Hyves for The Netherlands, and Gadu-Gadu in Poland.

Nimbuzz is a lifestyle application, designed to meet any communication need and is the only chat application to offer landscape chat and IM buddy calling. The centralized contact list aggregates contacts of the most popular social and IM networks, and offers superior VoIP call quality over Wifi.

Other key updates include Personal Message allowing users to broadcast real-time status updates to all contacts, presence information to see who is online and where, and emoticons for additional expression.

Nimbuzz currently grows at over 10,000 new users per day, with over 10 Million logins per day, and we are happy to welcome iPhone and iPod users to the community.

Nimbuzz Screen Shots 

AP Launches News Service Geared for iPhone

The Associated Press and more than 100 of its member newspapers are launching a service Monday that will make news stories available on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other mobile devices.

AP had announced the Mobile News Network at its annual meeting April 14 in Washington. AP's president and chief executive, Tom Curley, said then that six newspaper companies were working to help develop the new service.

Paul Caluori, director of client content services for AP, said the service now has 107 newspapers participating, up from 18 at the time of the announcement. The papers include The Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.

Companies that help connect advertisers with networks of Web sites will be among the sellers of ads for the new service and will share revenues with the news providers.

The service will deliver local news from participating member newspapers and national and international news from AP. The reports will be organized by ZIP code.

Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and others also offer news services tailored for mobile devices, but Jeffrey Litvack, global product development director for AP, said the Mobile News Network would offer easier access to local news stories.

Apple offered guidance on how to best tailor the service to the iPhone but has no formal role with the product, Litvack said.

Six newspaper publishers participated in the initial setup of rules governing the service: Advance Publications Inc., Hearst Corp., Lee Enterprises Inc., McClatchy Co., MediaNews Group Inc. and Rust Communications Inc. Since then Media General Inc. and newspapers held in partnerships in California have been among those that have joined.

Caluori said that the two largest newspaper companies in the country, Gannett Co. and Tribune Co., hadn't yet decided whether to join the program and were still evaluating it.

The Associated Press is a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its member news organizations. It was founded in 1846.