So how did it all get to be this way? App watchers and wizards at ShoutEm have put together a nice infographic to recount the brief albeit bustling history of the mobile app store. One interesting fact: I had no idea that Android Market launched only three months after iTunes App Store. Who knew!

Brought to you by ShoutEm – App Creator

For you of poorly sight, you can view a larger version here.

Apple also announced iBooks Author, a Mac app that lets users create ebooks that include the full range of iBooks 2’s interactive features. It includes the ability to import videos, Keynote presentations, HTML or Java code, and create widgets like those found on the OS X dashboard. The software also makes it easy to create glossaries for ebooks. Clicking on a word creates a glossary entry for it, and allows the user to enter a definition.

Also part of the announcement was a new project called Life On Earth, an “attempt to recreate the biology textbook” by E.O. Wilson, professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. The book will be available in the iBookstore chapter by chapter. The first two chapters are available now for free, while other “aggressively priced” chapters will be coming later.

Textbooks in the iBooks store are aimed at the high school market to begin with, and will be selling for $14.99 or less. Apple also announced partnerships with Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which account for roughly 90% of the textbook market. Each company is starting with a range of basic textbooks available in the iBookstore

Apple also announced an app for iTunes U, its program for making university-level curriculum freely available. The service is currently used primarily for delivering lectures. The new app is meant to turn iTunes U into an entire course management platform. The iTunes U app allows users to track assignments, watch or listen to lectures, take notes, and read assigned materials. Six schools, including Duke, Stanford, MIT, and Yale, have had early access to the new iTunes U and used it to create over 100 online courses. What’s more, while iTunes U has, as the name suggests, been primarily focused on higher education, it is now available for K-12 schools as well.

All three apps – iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U are live in the App Store right now, and all three are free. iBooks Author is a Mac app, while iTunes U is a universal iOS app. iBooks 2 is also a universal app, just as it has always been, but the textbook features showcased today are only available on the iPad.

To make sorting your daily deals easier, PriceGrabber has launched DealGrabber [iTunes link]. Announced at CES today, the free iPhone app collects deals from several daily deal sites and displays them for you in a single convenient list. Users can view deals from Groupon, LivingSocial, Restaurant.com, Eversave, Gift City, and more. The app includes a variety of sorting options, allowing users to see which deals are newest, which end soonest, and which are closest to them. Unfortunately the app does not include support for signing in to your individual accounts with these deal sites, which means you’ll have to sign in and pay for the deals manually – either via the web or the various services’ native apps.

Other features of the app include a map view that allows users to see deals by location, and a hybrid view that merges the map and the list. The app accesses the iPhone’s on-board GPS, allowing users to see the deals closest to their current location (it also allows you to input location manually). It also includes the ability to email deals to yourself, or to share them on Facebook. Filtering by price, location or category, as well as home screen customization and the ability to save favorite searches make finding the kind of deals you want easy.

The app is currently available in the iTunes Store for the unbeatable price of free. Check it out, then come back and let us know what you think in the comments.

[Source: PriceGrabber Press Release]

All Things D first reported the event, and Tech Crunch later added their own confirmation, saying that the announcement would take place in New York City and would revolve around the iBooks platform. The announcement was also said to be “minor” in scale.

Fox News’ Clayton Morris is now reporting that his sources have revealed that the announcement will be “small in size but large in scope; a big announcement in a demure space.” He says that he expects two fairly large announcements to occur that deal with Apple’s role in the education space.

MacRumors has received some information that might corroborate reports that Apple is planning on throwing their weight behind digital textbooks.

Adding to the speculation about textbooks perhaps playing a role in the upcoming announcement is information we’ve received from a source indicating that Apple last month filmed a series of short interviews with textbook industry executives. The interviews are said to have been of the type that would be used in one of Apple’s promotional overview videos for a new product or service.

Our source cautions us that there is no direct evidence tying the interviews to the upcoming media event and that Apple frequently films promotional video segments and commercials that never see the light of the day, but the timing of the filming seems to be in line with possible preparations for the media event.

Of course, Steve Jobs biographer and bestselling author Walter Isaacson has said on multiple occasions that Jobs wanted to do something about textbooks – to make them an important feature of the iPad.

The second part of the media event could focus on self-publishing, according to ereader site goodereader.

Apple is going to be holding an exclusive event in New York city later this month to possibly launch a new program for their iBooks and Publishing platform. Sources close to the matter have told us that they intend on launching a new digital self-publishing platform to get peoples content into the iBookstore. This is a huge step forward for Apple to compete with Amazon (DTP) and Barnes and Noble (Pubit).

This program would utilize EPUB 3, the IDPF’s open standard for e-books.

So, part one: Textbooks, and part two: self-publishing. Certainly two announcements that could be seen as small in size but large in scope.

Together, all of these reports give us a look into what Apple could be planning for the end of the month. While this is all still a bunch of speculations from various sources, one thing everyone can agree on is that the event will probably have nothing to do with any new hardware.

The App Store Rewind breaks down the year’s top performers into categories which include Music, Movies, TV, Apps, Books and Podcasts. In each category, Apple not only lists the top sellers from 2011, but also makes some editorial picks in the form of “best” this and “______ of the year.”

According to Apple, this best entertainment this year came from boy wizards, meth cooks, photo filtering, and painful breakups.

Music:

Artist of the Year: Adele

Album of the Year: Wasting Light, Foo Fighters

Song of the Year: Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People

Breakthrough Artist of the Year: Nicki Minaj

Top Sellers (Songs):

1. Rolling in the Deep, Adele
2. Party Rock Anthem, LMFAO
3. Firework, Katy Perry
4. Grenade, Bruno Mars
5. Forget You, Cee Lo Green
6. Give Me Everything, Pitbull
7. E.T., Katy Perry
8. Moves Like Jagger, Maroon 5
9. Pumped Up Kicks, Foster The People
10. Super Bass, Nicki Minaj

Top Sellers (Albums):

1. 21, Adele
2. Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons
3. Tha Carter IV, Lil Wayne
4. Watch The Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye West
5. Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay
6. Born This Way, Lady Gaga
7. Loud, Rihanna
8. Take Care, Drake
9. Teenage Dream, Katy Perry
10. Doo-Waps & Hooligans, Bruno Mars

BONUS – The wonderful self titled Bon Iver album won best Indie Album of the Year.

Movies:

Best Blockbuster: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2

Best Comedy: Bridesmaids

Best Indie: Midnight in Paris

Best Romance: Beginners

Top Sellers (Sales + Rentals):

1. The Social Network
2. Limitless
3. No Strings Attached
4. Just Go With It
5. The Lincoln Lawyer
6. Bridesmaids
7. Source Code
8. Tangled
9. The King’s Speech
10. Red

BONUS: Unsurprisingly, The Tree of Life took home the “most debated” prize.

TV Shows:

Best Half Hour: Modern Family

Best Drama: Breaking Bad (duh)

Best Discovery: Masterpiece: Downton Abbey

Best Breakout Comedy: Parks and Recreation

Top Sellers (episodes):

1. What Lies Ahead, The Walking Dead
2. Original Song, Glee
3. Box Cutter, Breaking Bad
4. Out, Sons of Anarchy
5. The Kids Are Not Alright, Gossip Girl

Top Sellers (seasons):

1. Doctor Who
2. Modern Family
3. Dexter
4. Breaking Bad
5. True Blood

BONUS: The brilliant Louie won “Most Realistic Non-Reality Show,” which is an apt description.

Apps:

App of the Year: Instagram

Game of the Year: Tiny Tower

Top Paid Apps:

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Angry Birds Seasons
4. Cut The Rope
5. Tiny Wings
6. Angry Birds Rio
7. Words With Friends
8. Camera+
9. Doodle Jump
10. Plants vs. Zombies

Top Free Apps:

1. Facebook
2. Pandora
3. Word With Friends Free
4. Angry Birds Free
5. Skype
6. Netflix
7. Angry Birds Rio Free
8. Groupon
9. Fruit Ninja Lite
10. Twitter

BONUS: Unsurprisingly, the popular app Flipboard ruled the “news apps” subcategory.

Books:

Best Novel: The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

Best Nonfiction: Boomerang by Michael Lewis

Best Teen Novel: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Top Sellers (Fiction):

1. The Help
2. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
3. A Game of Thrones
4. Water for Elephants
5. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest
6. The Litigators
7. Now You See Her
8. The Paris Wife
9. Breaking Dawn
10. Something Borrowed

Top Sellers (Nonfiction):

1. Steve Jobs
2. Heaven Is For Real
3. A Stolen Life
4. Unbroken
5. Shit My Dad Says
6. Bossypants
7. Bossypants (enhanced edition)
8. In The Garden Of Beasts
9. SEAL Team Six
10. Killing Lincoln

BONUS: Roger Ebert gets a spot on the top Bios list with his book Life Itself.

Podcasts:

Best Audio Podcast: NPR’s Fresh Air

Best Video Podcast: TEDTalks

Best New Audio Podcast: The Jillian Michaels Show

Best New Video Podcast: Epic Meal Time

BONUS: The top comedy podcasts come from Adam Carolla, The Onion, and Ricky Gervais.

Does anything strike you about these lists?  Any glaring omissions?  Surprised by anything?  Let us know in the comments.

Considering the amount of vitriol concerning Google Music‘s launch, you’d think the service completely reformatted and deleted everybody’s hard drive, or, at least, it was completely unusable. The funny thing is, Google Music is quite usable, if, for nothing else, the fact that it offers free cloud storage, and after watching Josh access files from his workstation computer — a Mac — the service works just fine, at least in regards to free cloud computing.

Sure, there are issues with not securing all of the major labels — Google has three of the four — and no, the service is not all that it can, and probably will be. That being said, it’s not the burning husk of wasted web code some are making it out to be, either. Unless, of course, you think this kind of criticism is valid instead of more Google bashing:

Tying a music store to a storage locker is not enough anymore. The technologies might be current, but the ideas behind Google Music are tired. An a la carte music store? A storage locker? MP3 lending? Guh. These concepts are all old. More to the point, they’re DONE. If, as a company, you’re going to improve on an existing product, well, that’s awesome. Thank you. But if you give us more of the same shit we’ve already had for years, we’d kindly ask you to leave Thunderdome. In a body bag.

Meanwhile, iCloud, which offers much of the same functionality as Google Music’s cloud storage, gets glowing write-ups, from the same publication the above blockquote was taken from, like these:

For some of us, iCloud means we’re never buying another computer, and for the rest of us, iCloud will be the end of computing as we have always known it… iCloud transforms our machines into little more than a variety of screens we’ll use to peek at data, in much the same way we use screens to peek in at TV shows. There’s nothing to learn, and nothing to manage. iCloud makes your computer and its file system completely unnecessary.

But because Google Music had the audacity to launch without, well, without being a complete iTunes killer, apparently, it isn’t that good, even though the service, by all accounts, works rather well.

Google Music offers free songs as well as those you can purchase, and after Josh downloaded “Bombs Over Baghdad,” you find the files are in the MP3 format, with 320 KBS playback rate. Oh, look, no proprietary software restrictions here, unless, of course, MP3s are no longer a universally supported file, which they are.

Of the more honest critiques I’ve read, Danny Sullivan’s comes to mind, but that’s because he finds the entire sharing process to be confusing. As far as accessing a Google Music file on your Android device and the confusion involved, I can’t speak to that, but Josh isn’t having much of a problem accessing these files on his workstation. One of Sullivan’s main complaints has to do with sharing music that was purchased outside of the Android Market:

I was fairly annoyed when I realized that songs already in my library, that hadn’t been purchased through Android Market, couldn’t be shared. There’s no good reason for this. All Google Music needs to do is match up songs to their pages in Android Market, and it could be done.

My counterpoint to that is, is song sharing that important of a feature? Does everyone in social network need to know you bought Rhinna’s new song? Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun turning others on to new artists and/or songs they haven’t heard before, but then again, it’s not the most crucial aspect of acquiring new music, at least to this writer.

With all of this in mind, is the criticism concerning Google Music a little overblown, thanks to the expectation level or is it right on the money?

It appears that we are getting closer to the official launch of the iTunes Match service, as Apple has just released another beta to developers.

iTunes Match, the $25-a-year subscription service from Apple that “matches” a user’s iTunes music with a high-quality version in the cloud (so that it’s accessible anywhere), was scheduled for a late October release – but has obviously been delayed.

MacRumors reports that Apple has released iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 to developers, and it contains stability improvements that are said to benefit the iTunes Match service.

From the beta update:

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match, and is a required update for all subscribers to iTunes Match beta.

Backup regularly and do not delete the music you add to iCloud from your computer. Apple may periodically delete all iCloud libraries during the beta period. This will require you to scan, match, and upload songs again

Currently, these developers are the only users with access to iTunes Match. These developers have seen Apple delete their iTunes Match libraries on a number of occasions in order to facilitate the testing – and this update is no different. Apple reminds devs that their iTunes Match music is never really safe and that they should always have backups stored to their computers.

So it looks like stability is the big reason for the delay. These beta releases with “stability and performance” updates, as well as Apple’s wording in the announcement emails suggest that the iTunes Match launch shouldn’t be too far away.

Are you going to sign up for the service? Let us know in the comments.

And now, as Very Aware has noticed, the Criterion Collection has made a very quiet debut on iTunes. Very quiet in that there’s been no big announcement and their Twitter and Facebook pages are bereft of even the smallest promotion.

The Criterion selection now available on iTunes is nowhere near the full collection, in fact there are barely over forty individual films available. But they have included some absolute must-sees like Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, John Ford’s Stagecoach, Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus.

The Criterion Collection is known to be a bit pricey – as the DVD’s and Blu-Rays can run anywhere from $25 to $40 – even more in rare circumstances. But here, the prices are quite reasonable, especially in comparison to other movies on iTunes. Most of the Criterion films are $2.99 to rent and $14.99 to buy. By comparison, it’s $14.99 to buy the new release Crazy, Stupid Love (starring Steve Carrell) and $3.99 to rent it.

That price point on purchases is especially tempting, considering that the same films on physical DVD would be much more expensive. You could build a nice little collection of classic Criterion films on your iPad for (relatively) cheap.

Of course, the iTunes selection is nowhere near the selection offered on Hulu. There, hundreds of Criterion films are available for a $7.99 a month subscription.

The lack of fanfare regarding this move is a bit surprising, but maybe it’s because of the fairly soft opening of 46 films. I’m sure that Criterion will add plenty more of its collection to the Apple marketplace. Another disappointing thing about the iTunes launch is the lack of special features – something that makes Criterion films special. As Very Aware points out, Criterion could utilize the iTunes extra feature in the future to bring some of that extra content to its films.

In other Criterion Collection news, they have been vocal about the fact that it’s Criterion days at Barnes & Noble. Every year, you can snatch up their films for 50% off both online and in-stores for a limited time.

The more and more I look at this, the more and more I’m tempted to snatch up Hoop Dreams for my iPad for permanent in-flight entertainment.

The aforementioned feedback was loud and clear on many movie-following websites, including Ain’t It Cool News, SlashFilm, Fark, Super Hero Hype and Reddit, to name a few. Each of these sites had tons of comments as fans and skeptics alike proceeded to dissect every frame of the 2:00 minute offering.

While that shouldn’t come as a surprise, perhaps the iTunes record breaking numbers might, especially when you consider just how many trailers come out on weekly basis, coupled with the suspect taste in movies the many members of the masses possess. I honestly figured a Twilight movie would hold that distinction. I’m happy to be disappointed. In setting the record, the trailer for The Avengers was downloaded over 10 million times in the first 24 hours it was posted on iTunes, according to Marvel’s press release.

The positive word of mouth reaction more than likely played a part in the trailer’s consumption, although, Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise has been incredibly well received, and neither one of those movies topped the numbers for The Avengers trailer. Speaking of, here it is in case you were on of the few to miss out on it:

BURBANK, Calif.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–Marvel Studios announced today that the trailer for next summer’s most highly anticipated movie, “Marvel’s The Avengers,” has been downloaded over 10 million times in its first 24 hours on iTunes Movie Trailers (http://www.apple.com/trailers), shattering the most-viewed trailer record in the site’s history.

The trailer, which debuted Tuesday, October 11, exclusively on iTunes Movie Trailers, gives fans a sneak peak at “Marvel’s The Avengers”—the Super Hero team up of a lifetime—based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since.

Does that mean we can expect The Avengers to break Avatar’s box office records or is James Cameron forever be king of the world, at least in relation to being the box office champion? By the way, do you what movie would actually be number one once ticket prices are adjusted for inflation? Gone With the Wind.

Do with that knowledge what you will.

iTunes 10.5 brings you iTunes in the Cloud. The big draw about this is that once you download a song on one of your Apple devices, they automatically appear on your other Apple devices. So if you download a track at home, you’ll automatically have it available to jam to on your drive to work.

iCloud will allow users a complete download history. Not only is this simply good information to have, but this will let you re-download all of your past purchases to any of your Apple devices.

iTunes 10.5 will make use of the upcoming iOS 5 as well as allow effortless synching via Wi-Fi.

10.5 paves the way for a feature that will launch soon, the previously announced iTunes Match. It will run you $24.99 a year, but here’s what you’ll get in return, according to Apple –

Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 19 million songs in the iTunes Store, chances are, your music is already in iCloud. And for the few songs that aren’t, iTunes has to upload only what it can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it to any of your devices. Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

Will you pay for the iTunes Match feature? Let us know in the comments.