Although there is no Apple Store in China yet, the iPhone is very popular there, and if you don't believe me, take a look at this Chinese iPhone. Not quite the same, but look - it says "iPhone" on the back, right? Well, let's leave those cheap clones aside, because I am sure China will get the real thing, sooner or later. After all, opening an Apple Store in Beijing is only the first step, the iPhone will surely drop by along the way, after the iPods take control...or not, but that remains to be seen. For now, let's concentrate on Apple's last official statements related to its future expansion in China, shall we?

According to Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president of retail, the store to open soon in Beijing is "the first of many stores we will open in China," with the first ones expected to be placed in "Beijing, in Shanghai and beyond," with two in Beijing, for the beginning.

The first one is going to be the 219th Apple Store worldwide, and will open its gates on the 19th of July, at 10AM. Located in Beijing's Sanlitun entertainment district, the two-level store will offer Genius Bar services in Chinese and English, just in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics, and it seems support in additional languages will be available, including German.<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->

You know what's the most interesting part of Apple's expansion in China? According to various estimations, between 400,000 and 1 million original iPhones are in use in China, despite the fact it was never released there, and disregarding the strong presence of cheaper iPhone clones on the market.

Unfortunately, the products Apple will sell in its Chinese stores will be painfully expensive, with the 32GB iPod Touch going as high as 4,488 Chinese Yuan, about $650, while the same item could be purchased for $499 from the Apple US online store.

China, ready or not, Apple is coming! Considering the fact that its marketing machine proved to work decently in a other markets full of budget-conscious users, there are plenty of chances to see them succeeding here, too, but we should not underestimate the power of the clones, either. All in all, Apple's evolution in China will be very interesting to watch in the coming years, I can bet on that!

Still don't have an iPhone 3G? Oh, well, that's life - the supply problems are not over yet, but they'll be over and gone, sooner or later. The good part of this whole iPhone 3G thing is that Apple's App Store arrived almost at the same time with it, but you can also use it to get software for your old iPhone or iPod Touch, as long as they were updated to the version 2.0 of their underlying software component. These being said, let's see the App Store statistics for the last few days, because there are a few surprising things you must hear!

If you are looking for iPhone 3G accessories, then let me tell you a secret - for this phone, the best accessories you can get are the programs you'll be running on it! I know that "accessories" is not the same with "programs," but, as time passes by, I start considering the software for any device being much more important than a case or a power adapter. Anyway, let's move on to the App Store news now, shall we?

Last Friday, there were 505 applications available, and the average price was $6.03, but on Saturday, the average price already went down to $5.62, after about 50 more programs were added, just to fall down to $5.47 by the next days, when the App Store had no less than 585 applications that were not free.<-250x250 Square - right->

Obviously, games are the most popular applications available, with 27 percent of the 802 programs counted in the store by Sunday, but only 21 of them are available for free. The funny part is that, if we consider all the applications in the App Store, and look at the top 10 downloads, only one of those is a paid software - Super Monkey Ball, while the remaining ones are freeware!

In the end, it seems Apple has nothing against free software, don't you agree? As long as there are enough freebies available on the App Store to draw attention, and paid applications are selling well, I see no reason to have anything against those programs coming for free. After all, nothing's free, and I am sure those software producers posting free applications for iPhone and iPod Touch on the App Store aren't starving because of this!

Last time when we talked about Apple's share on the US computer market they were just climbing above Toshiba, grabbing the fourth place, if I recall it well. Anyway, it's not Toshiba the one to be concerned, because now they have the third position in the US, and beating Acer wasn't that hard. As you can see below, the difference between Apple and Acer is very small, less than 5 percent, and this happens as the Cupertino-based company finished a quarter with a very healthy growth, and Acer went down almost 21 percent. Next target, HP, won't be that easy, you can bet on that!

According to preliminary Q2 2008 data from Gartner, Mac's sales have risen more than 38 percent in the US, reaching 1.4 million units, while Dell and HP, the ones dominating the market, sold 5.25 million and 4.167 million units, but only saw sales rise 11.9 percent, respectively 5.6 percent. Comparing Apple's sales for this year's second quarter to the same period of 2007, they managed to have more than 2 percent of the market, reaching 8.5 percent, compared to 6.4, last year.<-250x250 Square - right->

Regarding Apple's strongest competitor, Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group, said "Dell continued to be the market leader with PC shipments accounting for 31.9 percent of the U.S. market in the second quarter of 2008," but also noted that "The home PC segment continued to be the strongest driver for Apple, as well as sales into the education segment," when talking about the Mac, iPod and iPhone maker.

On the other hand, IDC placed Apple on the fourth place, basically having the same market share as Acer, 7.8 percent, and only 1,329,000 computer sold vs 1,331,000 estimated to have been sold by Acer.

If you were curious about how well Apple Computer market share looks, I hope you got an idea. Considering the "iPhone 3G madness" and the overall tendency for Apple to go higher, I think third place will be secured and enforced by the end of this year, but getting higher, that would be one of the toughest challenges Apple faced so far. All I can do is bid them "good luck," and hope for the best user experience possible for every user of Apple products out there!

Despite all problems with the iPhone 3G, more and more people are becoming its owners these days, and their number will surely increase in the coming months. Since Apple decided to make the iPhone 3G slightly different in size and shape to the previous model, just enough that most old iPhone accessories are now good for nothing, this instantly put a multi-million Dollar industry to work, so that iPhone 3G owners could get new accessories, fully compatible with it. For those crazy about the conspiracy theories, here's a new one: what if iPhone accessories manufacturers paid Apple to change the shape of the iPhone, so they won't starve? :) Now, that's just a crazy idea, so let's see the new accessories that Griffin Technologies has prepared for the iPhone 3G, shall we?

If you just got an iPhone 3G and feel like your new gadget is bare naked, don't worry - Griffin has them all, from cases and connector cables, to a video poker game, called 5 Card Touch! Anyway, this game is fully compatible with the iPod Touch and the old iPhone, too, so let's get to those iPhone 3G accessories!

First, you may be interested in the Nu Form with EasyDock for iPhone 3G, a shell including a premium cleaning cloth in the package, and taking full advantage of the EasyDock design, which allows you to charge & sync the iPhone 3G without removing it from the case. The price? Only $24.99!

The Wave for iPhone 3G is described by Griffin as a "stylish case with unique interlocking closure," offering wave-shaped closures grip, all-around protection and full access to your phone's ports and controls, for the same price tag of $24.99.<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->

Next, we have the Elan Form with EasyDock for iPhone 3G, one of my favorite iPhone 3G cases, offering hard-shell leather protection to the device, by combining a leather outer shell, and a polycarbonate inner shell, while still offering easy access to the multitouch display, ports and controls. For $29.99, you get the shell, as well as a static peel screen protector and a premium cleaning cloth.

Since you can(and probably will) browse around for what you want, and disregard my advice, I will only give you one more suggestion today, which I am sure is something all new iPhone 3G owners are thinking about - StereoConnect, for $14.99(sounds pretty expensive to me), allows you "to get your iPhone, iPod or other MP3 player hooked up and playing on your home entertainment system," and this - fortunately - includes the iPhone 3G, too.

As you can see above, things are looking pretty good for those looking for iPhone 3G accessories, so if you got the cash ready, just pick your favorite, and go for it!

As I always say, releasing a good product is not enough to keep your customers happy, and releasing more than just on good product isn't enough, either. If you come up with the greatest possible devices, but you can't provide proper customer support, then you're doomed from the start. When talking about Apple, best thing to do now is manufacture as many iPhone 3G smartphones as possible, since there are still plenty of people looking for them and not being able to buy one because of stores being out of stock, but in the long run, software updates are also a very important factor in market domination, and that's what I want to tell you about next...

While the iPhone 3G was reaching 1 million units sold barrier, a lot of software producers were busy releasing a bunch of software updates, most of them made public yesterday. Anyway, before moving to the latest update, I must tell you that the iPhone 2.0 firmware managed to effectively cripple the camera for some iPhone and iPhone 3G users, so if you skipped that update so far, better wait for a little longer! Now, to the latest updates, shall we?

First of all, if you're using FileMaker, most chances are you're using ScriptMaster already, but if you're not, then you can start up with a brand new version, since 360Works announced the latest one at the 2008 FileMaker Developers Conference in Phoenix, AZ, so if you want to use Java code without Java expertise, and do this for free, ScriptMaster could be your best choice. Even more, 360Works will also release a new version of SuperContainer, a tool for managing documents and images in FileMaker Pro.

Tired of looking for news? Subscribe to our news by email, first of all! Anyway,using a news reader on your Mac is also a good choice, so why not try Doseido Software's latest creation, Headline? More than just viewing news, this program also allows you to play podcasts and videocasts instantly.<-120x240 Vertical Banner - right->

Virtual Programming Ltd doesn't mean much to me, and Hendrickson Software Components doesn't ring any bell, either, but Europa Universalis surely does! The 8 years old game could be a great way to kill time on your iPhone, so these two companies I mentioned decided to port it to the iPhone. Great! I will be waiting for Hearts of Iron, now...

Do you want to take Wikipedia with you where no Internet connection is available? Well, what about converting Wikipedia articles into spoken word tracks in iTunes? If this sounds good to you, then you should definitely check Shiny Development's Speakpedia!

This should be all for today, and I really hope some of the above will prove to be useful to you and your Apple-related needs. After all, a good hardware platform without software is equal to 0, and I am happy to see those using Macs, iPods or iPhones are far from lacking enough options when it comes to software!