News Roundup for December the 1st

The world this morning really isn’t all that different from the world last Friday, we’re all just a couple of days older and VAT is a couple of percent lower. A few VAT price cuts are evident in the on-line Apple Store. For instance, the old white MacBooks now start at £704 rather than £719 — both equally sexy price points, I think you’ll disagree — and an 8Gb iPod Nano is £107. But in iTunes, meanwhile, prices remain unchanged, with standard tracks still 79p rather than the 77p they now should be. Sure, 2p isn’t much, but it quickly adds up — I refer you to the second Simpsons clip linked to via Connor’s last post as entirely fictional evidence. So how long before someone people actually read starts asking questions about this? I posed the question a little over a week ago, and at least for the moment it looks like my speculation — that the iTunes Store operates in the UK from abroad — may have been correct.

Elsewhere, we learn that the App Store has almost reached the 10,000 app mark. Our sketchy analysis suggests that 3,129 of those are ‘to do’ lists. And another 1,532 are flashlights. Also, if rumours are to be believed — and we’ve so little to write about that we urge you to believe in rumours like they’re sick fairies — iPhone OS 2.2.1 is on its way and bringing push notifications with it. iPhone Saviour calls fake with this great ‘Shop of their own, to which we reply “Ba! Humbug!” Don’t they know that this is the time of year for miracles?

Finally, for all you perverts out there who like to use Google apps on the desktop — it’s unnatural, I tells ye! — it looks like they’ll be bringing iPhoto-alike Picasa to the Mac some time next year. So any time in the next 13 months, then. Boy, do we need some proper news and soon.