Note - Interesting news from the US announcement today...(1) the Verizon iPhone has a slight redesign and existing iPhone 4 cases can't be used with it. See here and here for more. (2) AT&T haven't said much about the new hotspot feature which we hope makes its way to NZ. See here. (3) Apple saw sense this time and made the CDMA phone non-exclusive to Verizon. See here.

Verizon Wireless and Apple today announced that the iPhone 4 will be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning on Thursday, February 10. Qualified Verizon Wireless customers will be given the exclusive opportunity to pre-order iPhone 4 online on February 3, ahead of general availability.

Speculation is mounting that Verizon will announce they are bringing the iPhone to their network on January 11 (Jan 12 our time). Verizon has just sent out an invite to a press event. Is Apple involved in the event? Speculation there also is that if Apple were to feature prominently, it would somehow detract from the arrangement with AT&T. To stand up and proudly announce a new phone for its network, allows Verizon to say they sorts of things about competitors that Apple couldn't say (or allowed to be said) if in the same room (John Gruber explains this well here). However there sites are stating that Steve jobs will be involved. Check out stories on the Wall Street Journal, All Things Digital, MacRumors and Ars Technica.

According to asymco, the total number of apps downloaded from the App Store is likely to beat the total number of songs downloaded from iTunes by the end of this year. Comparing downloads so far, the App store reached a similar total download figure in 2.2 years compared to the music store taking over 5 years. The growth rate they then chart, suggests that indeed apps will take over from songs fairly soon.

Computerworld is reporting that iOS devices now are the third most popular OS surfing the net. This is significant because the OS now beats Linux and has a share that Computerworld states is almost six times larger than Android based devices. As the article states - "It's something to take note of when a mobile operating system passes something that's been around forever," said Vince Vizzaccaro, a Net Applications vice president, talking about iOS overtaking Linux. More details can be found on Computerworld.

Here's one that I have been waiting for, for a long time! AppleInsider are reporting that "FileMaker Go" apps are to launch on the iPhone and iPad soon. The apps are designed to allow you to connect to an FMPro Server (or shared database) via Wi-Fi or 3G...but even better, those like me that don't have access to a server can still move our databases across our device and use them from there. FileMaker has gone public with a demo of an iPhone app prior to version 11 of their flagship database system being released, but the product did not eventuate at the launch of FMPro 11.