“OEM production of iPad 2 will remain high at 14-15 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 but decline to 4-5 million units in the first quarter of 2012, paving the way for the launch of the new iPads, the sources noted.”

iPad 3 is widely believed to include a Retina display-like quality which will be manufactured by Sharp. As per Wall Street journal report, Apple has invested in Sharp factory for production of LCD panels for iPad 3. There are rumors like IGZO (Indium, Gallium, Zinc) technology will be used to provide thin design and better battery life.

“Whether you’re doing research and comparing results, or exploring beautiful imagery, we have added new features to make the app more interactive, more visual and to help you find what you want more easily,” Google wrote in a blog post

Google’s update is more synergistic, The redesigned app sports a simple home screen with a field to type your query. This also allows you to search by voice commands.

“Swipe right to view snapshots of pages you’ve visited, stacked and organized by search term. You can also manage your search history from this new view” Google said. Tapping an image will produce a carousel that lets you to swipe and go to next picture.

“We’ve also made it easier to find and use your favorite Google services like Google News, Calendar and more in the new Apps menu. Tap on an icon to quickly read an email in Gmail, or share a post on Google+ within the slide-in pane. When you slide the pane to the right, you’ll be right back to searching,” Fish said.

In a nutshell, Google is not just concentrating on Android users but it is attracting iOS users too.

Total revenue from the app store market grew by a staggering 160.2 percent to cross over $2.2 billion. “In 2010, competitors managed to close the gap with Apple’s iPhone in terms of providing smart phone products with compelling user interfaces,” said Jack Kent, analyst, mobile media, for IHS.

“However, in terms of mobile application stores, Apple remains far ahead of the competition, with the other stores so far unable to replicate Apple’s success in generating revenue from users. Apple, in contrast, has been able to maintain advantage by leveraging its tightly controlled ecosystem—combining compelling hardware and content with the capability to offer consumers a trusted, integrated and simple billing service via iTunes” he added.

Other findings of the study are-

• Google’s Android made the most impressive growth, with its revenue increasing by 861.5 percent for the year.
• Nokia’s OVI Store posted growth of 719.4 percent in revenues.
• BlackBerry App World retained its No. 2 position with 360.3 percent growth.

The new set of features has been used on over 800 video games and now it is being optimized for mobile devices. Some of the key features include-

• Multiple threads that will allow iPhone developers to create fast, graphically-rich mobile applications.
• The Analyzer for Memory and Performance (AMP) tool will provide information on CPU usage, memory allocation and rendering stats to the iPhone app developer.
• Mobile UI Kit to aid quick app development.
• Flash 10.1’s multi-touch API support for multi-touch functionality in applications.
• Stereoscopic 3D for providing Flash UIs and games on auto-stereo 3D mobile gaming devices, smart phones and tablets.

In a press release from the company, Brendan Iribe, president and CEO of Scaleform says “The inclusion of advanced features like the new multi-threaded rendering engine to accelerate mobile content brings Scaleform’s power and extensibility to a completely new market.”

“Not only can game developers familiar with Scaleform use it to create immersive mobile games and interfaces; any application developer can now use Scaleform to power graphically rich apps and custom user interfaces for many of the most popular mobile devices available today” he adds.

Beta 1 of iOS 4.3 offered Personal Hotspot, a new feature that would allow iPhone owners to share their 3G Internet connection and tether devices over Wi-Fi. It also introduced a new feature for third-party application development in which iPhone app developers can draw on AirPlay to stream videos into apps. Beta 1 also offered a choice of hardware switch to users.

With iOS 4.3 beta 2, Apple confirmed to the market that multiple touch gestures will not be available on its devices for customers and it was a preview only aimed to gauge reactions of iPhone application developers.

The recently released beta 3 has a new feature that will allow iPhone owners to cancel App downloads anytime. This feature will be particularly useful in situations where users have accidentally initiated app downloads.

A lot of people want to learn Mac OS X and iPhone app development these days and there are various ways to do so . One of them is Books which have always formed the base of learning system and come in various languages and from different authors . ” Learning Objective-C 2.0 – A hands on Guide to Objective-C for Mac and iOS Developers ” is a handy guide for newbies who have some working knowledge of C even if your C is rusty you can have a quick look at the basics and essential parts of C in the first few chapter , this will brush up your basics and prepare you to get started with Objective-C 2.0 .

The books cover some really interesting and essential aspects of Objective C and C programming language . Have a look at them below :

• The books takes care of basic concepts of C programming language for beginners while it also explains with examples how to deal with advance issues .
• The level of explanation is a perfect fit for both , a beginner and an advanced programmer .
• The is a helpful reference guide for experts who are more into advanced programming .
• Developers really don’t need to think about Mac Development in a different way. It shows how close Mac Development is with iOS or vise versa.
• The book covers every little feature of Objective-C 2.0 right from class instances till the recently introduced (in Objective-C 2.0) “Blocks programming”. It also explains newbies what is Cocoa Framework & what are its components.
• It actually explains complex concepts in very easy language with great examples.

New concepts introduced in Objective-C 2.0 :

• Garbage collection – adds automatic memory management to Objective-C
• Blocks – let you define function like objects that carry their context
• Declared properties – provide an easy way to specify an object’s instance variable and to have the compiler create methods to access those variables for you.
• Fast Enumeration – provide a simple and fast way to iterate over a collection of objects .

This is by far the best book which explains ‘Memory Management’ so well, with in depth of Retain count, etc. If one ever had a problem understanding memory management even in C++ or another language, we suggest them going through this book once and read how Garbage Collection works on Mac and how it’s done in iOS , which has been explained in detail. We completely admire this chapter of the book. Another thing we like about the book is the explanation on ‘Block programming’ , which has been recently introduced in Objective-C 2.0 and will be a great asset to developers .

If you plan to learn iPhone(iOS) app development or Mac OS X development this book is worth its price of $20.94 . You can get it from Amazon as a kindle edition or a paperback format . Whats inside the book ? Have a look here .

And just as we expected , Apple is here with the iOS 4.2 beta 2 for iPad , iPod touch and iPhone application developers .

IPhone application developers may check out this new update from Apple here ( you will need to be a part of the iPhone developer program to access this update ) .

Most of the iPhone developers are already running iOS 4.2 beta 2 , so go and grab it soon and do let us know how you find this update and how different is it from the iOS 4.2 beta 1 .

From the users’ point of view we see that the iPhone users who has already upgraded the OS need not regret any more

If you are a developer you can start developing the next generation of innovative applications for iPad with iPhone SDK 3.2 GM. Paying members of iPhone Developer Program can download iPhone SDK 3.2 GM from www.apple.com/ipad/sdk .If you haven’t submitted your app yet  , start testing it against this build immediately , if it doesn’t pair well with the new Gold master 3.2 , you may be rejected instantly .