Today they rolled it out for iPhone apps. Copying a link from the iTunes store and pasting it into a web browser will get you a page that looks like the screenshot above. 

You can view the icon, description of the app (clicking More... will expand the description), price, ratings, developer info, customer reviews, screenshots, and what other customers also bought at the bottom. However, clicking 'View more by this developer' will take you to iTunes.

Pretty functional web-based preview for iPhone apps, and this has been much needed, since people may be shopping for iPhone apps on a computer that does not have iTunes installed.

Regarding Google, Jobs confirms of the heated competition between the companies.

"We did not enter the search business," Jobs said. "They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them."

As far as the lack of Flash support, Jobs claims that the Flash implementation in Macs is buggy and won't support it in the iPhone or iPad.

"Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash," Jobs said. "The world is moving to HTML5."

Some other key points of interest regarding the town hall meeting:

- Apple will deliver aggressive updates to iPhone that Android/Google won't be able to keep up with
- iPad is up there with the iPhone and Mac as the most important products Jobs has been a part of
- Regarding the Lala acquisition, Apple was interested in bringing those people into the iTunes team
- Next iPhone coming is an A+ update
- New Macs for 2010 are going to take Apple to the next level
- Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it.

via Wired and MacRumors

Apple has the keynote up online now, which can be found here. There is also now the page apple.com/ipad, which features the demo video of the iPad, as well as information about the device. You can even sign up to get notified of when the device will start shipping (60 days from today).

The base facts of the iPad (which is, by far, the worst name they could have given it-were there no focus groups for this?!?)

• 9.7 inch LED-backlit IPS display
• Capacitative multi-touch
• 1024x768 resolution at 132 PPI
• 1.5 lbs, .5 inches thin
• 10 hours battery life
• 802.11n WiFi
• Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
• Separate WiFi and 3G models
• 3G model will be supplied with AT&T 3G data ($14.99 for 250MB, $29.99 unlimited)
• Apple A4 1 GHz chip powered processor
• 16, 32, 64GB flavors
• Starting at $499, $599, $699 for WiFi models, 3G will be an additional $130 on top of starting WiFi price
• WiFi only model will start shipping in March, 3G model in April
• Accelerometer
• Syncs via USB to iTunes
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Built-in speaker
• Microphone
• SIM card tray

This is the basics, there's more that can be found at http://apple.com/ipad/specs. It will be able to run iPhone apps in regular resolution or full screen, straight out-of-the-box. You can even customize the background of it. So it's pretty much a hybrid of iPhone OS with Mac OS X. The UI for Mail and Calendar are much improved over the iPhone versions, though it looks similar. Maybe this can find its way into iPhone OS 4.0. It is also going to have the iBook app, which will allow the purchase of ebooks from Apple's own digital bookstore (Kindle killer, anyone?).

The disappointing thing is there is no multitasking (as of yet), no cameras, and the name...but that's not the point.

Like with the 1st gen iPhone, there are some things that are missing, so it would probably be better to wait til the 2nd gen. Not to mention that the iPhone 1st gen got a price drop only months after being introduced - maybe the same fate will await the iPad - we'll see.

Supposedly, this new source claims that iPhone OS 4.0 will have "a few new ways" to run apps in the background, enabling the much-needed ability of multitasking. There may also be some UI changes to make the mobile operation system easier and more efficient for users. This source also tipped that this update will only be available for iPhone 3G and 3GS owners, leaving the first-gen crowd in the dust, yet again (MMS?).

There may also be a revamped Maps application in 4.0, since the current Maps app relies on Google Maps, but Apple may put that acquisition of Placebase to use.

iPhone OS 4.0 is rumored to be a part of the Jan. 27 event, so there's one more week until we find out if this is real or not.

Stay tuned.

It's been confirmed by several big tech blogs that have received their invites to the Apple Media Event which will take place on Jan. 27, 10 a.m PST at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Then we can finally be rid of all the speculation and rumors once and for all.

Click for the full-blown image

Here's a mockup of the Apple Tablet, complete with every rumor thus far of what the device will have/do, thanks to The Green Room Blog.

According to Gizmodo's inside spy source, here's some more info on the Apple Tablet that may be dropping on us all soon enough.

• The tablet’s multi-touch gestures are “out of control.”
• It’s powered by an incredibly fast ARM CPU
• It runs on the iPhone kernel.
• The internal model number is K48AP.
• There hasn’t been an updated iPhone OS build because there’s too much tablet-related code/references in the OS and Apple obviously didn’t want that to leak. Oops.
• The tablet is basically an “iPhone on steroids.”

If this device is really going to run an iPhone OS of some sort, then that would explain why there haven't been any new betas for iPhone OS yet (4.0 anyone?). 

Stay tuned for more info as the Apple event on Jan 27 approaches.

In just a matter of three months, the company has served 2 billion downloads, with the huge increase of iPod Touch and iPhone sales during the holidays helping out, no doubt. 

With 3 billion downloads, this means that Apple serves up 10.1 million app downloads per day for the last 99 days, according to reports. This is a much bigger increase over the 6.9 million downloads a day between April and July, 2009.

“Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months — this is like nothing we’ve seen before,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said. Jobs called the App Store “unlike anything else available on other mobile devices” with “no signs of the competition catching up soon," cites Cult of Mac.

It was only last July, on the 1 year birthday of the App Store, in which there were 1.5 billion downloads, with the number of apps growing to 100,000 by the end of 2009.

It's already known that the App Store has become a huge success, catching everyone off guard, even the early investors. It's even been said that Apple would have been happy with even a fraction of the 2 billion downloads in October 2009.

With a brand new year in place, analysts now predict that there could be as many as 300,000 apps in the App Store by the end of the year.

Image source: Mashable.com

So far, they have confirmed the following: the Apple Tablet will be revealed at the end of the month (Jan 27), may be potentially named iSlate, and it will launch in March. There is something new however - they believe that they know the price of this mythical device.

The Apple Tablet will have either a 10 or 11 inch screen, which has been one of the rumors flying around for the past several months (although the image of the internal docs in an earlier post show a 7' screen). 

It would be safe to assume that the Tablet will do such things as surf the web, play games, watch and play multimedia, read e-books, and a little farther off but possible, running iPhone apps. 

The biggest news? WSJ reports that the device will cost $1000, according to their sources.

$1000 nowadays can get you a decent and powerful laptop or beginning MacBook, so the question is whether consumers will feel the need or want to spend $1000 on a tablet device, when there are laptops that are much more functional that are readily available. But who knows? This could be a potential game-changer much like the iPhone itself. 

Mashable reports that the Tablet will also include a nationwide Wi-Fi subscription service of some kind. If this is the case, then the $1000 price tag may be reasonable, although we technically are in a recession of some kind.