Searching for iTunes

  • Why did Steve Jobs cry so much? What's the deal with the iOS 5.0.1 update? How does iTunes Match work? How did Siri's protocol get reverse-engineered? These questions and more were all answered in our most popular Apple posts of the week. If you need to catch up, you're in the right place.
  • December is already here and people are looking forward to holidays. Everyone is happy. So this is definitely a great time to head over to the iTunes App Store as all the Christmas-themed apps are available there. You will find every kind of apps from games to stories, recipes and planning apps.
  • Apple turned on streaming of purchased TV shows on the Apple TV for customers in the U.K., Canada and Australia on Wednesday night. The change doesn't even require a user-initiated update, and should be available on all current Apple TVs in those countries right now.
  • Apple has released its annual iTunes Rewind, a look back at the most popular content available in the App Store over the past year. This year, top honors went to photo-sharing app Instagram, which Apple named "iPhone App of the Year."
  • In the continued spotlight on mass surveillance, WikiLeaks Spy Files posted Gamma videos teaching intelligence agencies how to hack iTunes, Gmail and Skype. But Tatiana Lucas, one of the people behind profiting from the secret snoop ISS conferences, wants you to believe that exposing surveillance methods will cost U.S. jobs, make companies hesitant to support government surveillance, and maybe stop Congress from updating a lawful-interception law. Yet this company that profits on mass monitoring fails to mention privacy rights, civil liberties, or human rights.
  • Do you remember the Apple “Smuggler Truckâ€? App that allowed users to “smuggleâ€? illegal immigrants across the border? Read more about it and all the 15 Controversial Apps Pulled from iTunes in 2011 that made our end-of-year list. How many do you remember?
  • If Apple becomes the iTunes of the digital textbook world, will college students be able to save some cash?
  • Even the most tech-savvy among us can induce the occasional face-palm by getting tripped up over pretty basic stuff that they just aren't familiar with.
  • Apple have just released the very first PC game, Donkey, as an app for iPhone/iPad.
  • Apple's iTunes Store has more than 140,000 apps just for the iPad. You can't try all of them, of course, but here are 10 hidden gems worth the effort.