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More than 100,000 apps are now available for download from Apple’s App Store, making it the largest such retailer in the world.

The App Store launched in July 2008 with just 500 applications. The store is now available in 77 countries, which has contributed to what Apple said Wednesday is well over 2 billion downloads.

Apps from the App Store work with both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

When introducing its new iPod Touch in September, Apple positioned the device as a superior gaming platform to Sony’s PSP or Nintendo DS. Apple said its rivals charged too much for games and didn’t offer enough selection. At the time, Apple had more than 21,000 game titles in the App Store, while Nintendo had 3,600 titles and Sony had 600.

The message apparently has gotten through.

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios at EA Mobile, was quoted in Apple’s press release Wednesday.

On October 7th, 2003, Nokia made a splash as it attempted to challenge Nintendo’s dominance of the handheld gaming market. Its entry was the N-Gage, a dual mobile phone and gaming system. However, the funny look it had when you used it as a phone (”taco phone” was a popular comparison), as well a weaker game library doomed it from the start.

Today, Nokia announced that it is ending the N-Gage line of phones and games, instead opting to push forward its gaming agenda via the Ovi app store.

The move was inevitable, especially as Apple has turned the iPhone into a gaming powerhouse, but we’re still going to miss making fun of Nokia’s Taco Phone. This is our farewell to the N-Gage, which had the right idea but the wrong execution.

Apple has updated its popular MacBook with a new, durable polycarbonate unibody design featuring a brilliant LED-backlit display, a glass Multi-Touch trackpad and Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life. The new MacBook is available at an MRP of Rs. 56,900.

“The new MacBook includes many of the great features found on the innovative MacBook Pro, such as an LED-backlit display, glass Multi-Touch trackpad and built-in long-life battery,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the only lineup of notebooks all featuring unibody enclosures, LED-backlit displays and long-life battery technology, there’s never been a better time to switch to a Mac.”

The new MacBook features a unibody, polycarbonate enclosure that makes it lighter and more durable. The new design includes a unique non-skid bottom surface and weighs just 4.7 pounds. MacBook comes standard with a bright, LED-backlit display with the same wide-angle viewing technology used in the MacBook Pro line. The new MacBook has a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics.

The new MacBook includes Apple’s innovative built-in notebook battery for up to seven hours of wireless productivity on a single charge, and up to 1,000 recharges. At nearly three times the lifespan of conventional notebook batteries, Apple’s built-in battery results in fewer depleted batteries and less waste. Depleted batteries can be replaced at a cost, which includes installation and environmentally responsible disposal of your old battery.

The energy-efficient MacBook joins the industry’s greenest lineup of notebooks, with every Mac notebook achieving EPEAT Gold status and meeting Energy Star 5.0 requirements. The entire Mac notebook line now comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. Mac notebooks contain no brominated flame retardants, use internal cables and components that are PVC-free and are constructed of recyclable materials.

The new MacBook will be available within 2 weeks through Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new MacBook, for a maximum retail price of Rs. 56,900, includes:
• 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
• 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
• 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
• 250 GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• two USB 2.0 ports;
• one audio line in/out port, supporting optical digital out and analog in/out;
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad;
• built-in, 60WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

As we reported earlier today, Apple’s online store went down for updates earlier today, amidst rumors of new products and product updates. Now that the store is back online, the new products up up for display.

So what’s new? Well, as usual, intricate accuracy of the rumors proved to be true: new iMacs with slight redesigns and brighter, larger displays, updated Mac minis (including a Mac OS X server option), a newly designed MacBook and a new multi-touch mouse (which was rumored early in the month) that will finally free Mac users from the Mighty Mouse’s impossible-to-keep-clean clutches.

New iMacs

The new iMacs feature larger, 16:9 displays (previous displays were 16:10) in either 21.5″ or 27″ in size. The new displays are brighter and use high-end IPS panels and LED backlighting.

The new iMacs also feature faster processors (including the ability to use the Intel Core i5 or i7 in built-to-order models shipping in November), more RAM and better connectivity options.

The 21.5″ iMac starts at $1199 US.

New MacBook with 7-hour Battery

Although the MacBook has had its share of hardware updates over the last three and a half years, the design for the entry-level white MacBook has remained unchanged. Today Apple has updated the MacBook from top to bottom.

The new MacBook features a built-in battery that last up to 7 hours on a single charge (the same technology is available in the MacBook Pro laptops) and now features an LED backlit screen and the glass mutli-touch trackpad also introduced in the unibody MacBook Pros.

The price is still $999, but it sports a faster processor and larger hard drive, in addition to the new design.

Magic Mouse

Apple bills the Magic Mouse as the world’s first multi-touch mouse. It is included with every new iMac and available separately for $69.

The Bluetooth mouse has a multi-touch top surface and the mouse itself is the button. From the video demonstration, it looks like they’ve take then multi-touch gestures from the iPhone and the unibody MacBook Pros and translated it into a pointing device.

This rumor simply has to be taken with a grain of salt, but word has it that Verizon and Apple are testing a version of the iPhone on Verizon’s upcoming 4G LTE network.

For those unfamiliar with the landscape, 4G is essentially the next-generation of cellular networks, designed to carry data and increase the speed and capacity of mobile networks. Although the rumor is unconfirmed, it would make a lot of sense for Apple to hold out for the LTE deployment in order to get more mileage out of the R&D dollars it needs to spend to make a version of the iPhone compatible with Verizon’s network.

The rumor sources note that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam has been making bi-monthly trips to Mountain View to visit with Google, culminating in an announcement of Android phones coming to Verizon. Apple’s headquarters are a mere 8.5 miles away, lending further anecdotal evidence to the idea.

We know that Verizon is steadily making progress on their next-gen LTE (Long Term Evolution) network, having already begun successful testing of data calls. We also know there are many logical reasons to expect that AT&T exclusivity for the iPhone will end, with analysts and pundits alike all placing the timeframe in 2010 for this to happen. Even the Department of Justice is taking an interest in getting the iPhone onto more networks.

What remains unknown are the specific details. It does seem like it fits with Apple’s M.O. to want to make a big splash with a 4G iPhone launch on the U.S. largest carrier, but keep those salt shakers at the ready until we get some official confirmation.

If you’re a current iPhone owner, would you consider ditching AT&T for Verizon if the option were available? If you’re not an iPhone owner, would you consider picking one up if it came to another carrier? Let us know in the comments.

Apple is a company that doesn’t often jump bandwagons; they rather have everyone else jump on theirs. It is thus somewhat understandable that they don’t have an official Twitter account yet, except for the one that lists all the new iTunes Trailers.

However, as noticed by Tweetdeck founder Iain Dodsworth, Apple has recently added a couple of iTunes-related Twitter feeds, bringing the total number of their accounts to five. These are:

twitter.com/iTunesMusic
twitter.com/iTunesPodcasts
twitter.com/iTunesTV
twitter.com/iTunesMovies

It’s not much, and we’d still like to see Steve Jobs tweet, but it’s a start.

The internet is buzzing over Apple’s latest invention, the MacBook Wheel. This is a revolutionary laptop that does away with the keyboard. You will have to say goodbye to the keyboard and say hello to the future of laptop computers.

Apple has replaced the keyboard with a sleek touch sensitive click wheel. Apple has said that the MacBook Wheel will make typing a thing of the past

The Revolutionary Laptop of the Future by Apple

Apple does it again. It looks amazing, but will probably take some time for most to get used to.