As it was expected by everyone, Apple came up with something new today. It wasn't the iPhone SDK, and in fact it didn't even arrive exactly today. How's that? It's very simple - last night, Apple released the Bubble Bash game for the iPod!


Developed by the French company, Gameloft, Bubble Bash is an arcade game where you have to use the click wheel to aim and shoot a bubble cannon, with the purpose of clearing patterns of the same color, before the advancing wave reaches the bottom of the screen, while being challenged by additional threats, such as monkeys or parrots.

Available for a mere $5 on iTunes, Bubble Bash works on 5th generation video ipods, 3rd generation nanos, as well as the iPod classic.

This is not everything, because two more interesting facts should be mentioned today. First, if you're going to visit the iTunes Store to grab Bubble Bash, you may also consider grabbing the "Movie of the Week", an older title available for only $0.99 (this week, it's 2002's Academy Award winner "The Hours"), and second, you could consider visiting Amazon to grab the iPod touch 32GB. Why? Well, it comes with a free 1GB iPod shuffle as a bonus!

The iPhone may face some serious legal problems in Australia, but the interesting part is that these problems may lead Apple into selling unlocked iPhones...or drop the idea of entering the Australian market. How's that possible? Well, that's what we shall see right away...


According to a group of law researchers located in Queensland, "The iPhone is breaking new ground in using technology to restrict customer's choice in technology markets.", so releasing the iPhone in Australia and requiring its buyers to sign a contract with a certain carrier could enter in contradiction with the Trade Practices Act provision dealing with third-line forcing.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) law researcher Dale Clapperton said "This law will greatly simplify the task of seeking redress for such behaviour through the courts and could prove a deterrent for exclusive release of the iPhone with one carrier.", so "If Apple enter into an exclusive agreement with any particular carrier then it would be a matter for the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) as to whether that agreement was anticompetitive and contravened the trade practices act."

Do I have to say more? Apple Australia didn't say anything yet, but I hope they will decide to make things easier for everyone and sell unlocked iPhones there. "At least there", I must add. In the end, they may lose some revenue, but they will surely improve their image a lot!

Back in October, Steve Jobs finally announced that Apple will support third-party development of software applications for their iPhone, and everyone got ready for the storm of games and other programs to arrive. First, the SDK for the iPhone and iPod touch was expected to arrive about a month after the MacWorld Conference & Expo, but now, a new delay has just been announced...


Now, it seems that a blog posting at BusinessWeek.com made it clear that the iPhone SDK will be released in early- to mid-March. In the last weeks, everyone was ready to see something new from Apple, but all we got were the smaller prices and those updated iPods.

The most interesting part is that, since 2008 kicked in, Apple dropped us new things on each Tuesday, so since most voices, more or less official, are claiming that if the SDK manages to arrive tomorrow, it won't be the final version, but some Alpha or Beta release.

At last, here's the blog post that started everything. Take your time to read it, and remember that yesterday, Steve Jobs celebrated his 53rd anniversary(Happy birthday, Mr. Jobs!), so if the SDK doesn't make it quite on time, we could also suppose they had a wild party yesterday, and getting back on track was harder than expected...

A few days ago, some rumors were heard about Linkin Park being scheduled to play at a big event planned by Apple. Most thought this is going to be the release of some new product, or some major update, but I wasn't quite sure what to think. Having such big names play in a show kept secret for a long time isn't such a great marketing idea, especially since some people living far from the location of the show would love to attend. That's why I didn't mention this on BindApple, but now the show is over, and there's no secret, no rumor, no "what if", so let's see what happened, after all, shall we?


On the 20th of February, Linkin Park played six songs at the Apple Soho, in New York, and the show was recorded to be released on iTunes at a later date, yet to be announced. The songs that were enjoyed by the 200 radio contest winners present at the event were “Wake”, “Given Up”, “Shadow of the Day”, “My December”, “In Pieces”, and “Bleed It Out”.

Well, it seems Apple had no secret event ready, and no launch is scheduled for the near future. Or...who knows, maybe we have no idea about what's in store for us! Anyway, the release of the SDK for the iPhone should arrive before the 1st of March, if Apple succeeds in keeping their promise, so we may have interesting new things from them pretty soon...

Today, we have no less than 3 pretty interesting rumors, so I decided to write a single article about them. The reason is that, as it usually happens with Apple-related rumors, there are no big details about them, just "something may happen", so here we go...


First, it's the iTunes price drops, since some people that used the UK iTunes Store claim to have been charged only 73p for a song, while the iTunes Store UK website still shows the price to be 79p...

Second, we have some reports about BBC Worldwide showing up on the iTunes Store, but nothing is official yet.

At last, there's the pretty strange rumor related to the next iPhone update. Since the current version is 1.1.3, logical would be to expect 1.1.4 sometime in the near future, but latest rumor says the next version of software for Apple's iPhone will be labeled 2.0. Well, if this happens, at least I hope they'll add a serious amount of new and useful features, because otherwise, it would be a pity...

These being said, I close the "Apple rumors" chapter of today, but I'll get back to it in the not-so-far future, you can be sure of that!