New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s s weetheart deal for Apple's just-opened Grand Central Terminal retail store seems to be paying dividends for the MTA and neighboring stores. One restaurant is reporting a 7 percent increase in sales since the store opened in December

Research firm Strategy Analytics today announced its estimates of the global smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, finding that Apple narrowly squeezed by Samsung to retake the title of world's largest smartphone vendor as measured by unit shipments. According to Strategy Analytics' numbers, Apple's 37 million iPhones narrowly eclipsed Samsung's quarterly smartphone shipments of 36.5 million units. Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “While Apple took the top spot in smartphones on a quarterly basis, Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011

iPod nano packaging photo by iLounge From an advance copy of Adam Lashinsky's upcoming Inside Apple book, NetworkWorld notes an interesting bit of information about how Apple approaches retail packaging. Perhaps it should be no surprise, given the elegance of some of Apple's product packages, but Apple is said to have a secretive packaging room where a package designer goes through hundreds of iterations to find the right combination: One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer's obsession.

We have waited nearly three months in total, and A5 owners have had to sit in envy for nearly four weeks as they watch their A4 device friends enjoy an untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak, but the wait is nearly over. The release of the Corona A5 jailbreak is close and I can almost taste its liberating goodness. Continue reading this article at RedmondPie.com

Phil Schiller took to the stage in New York to open the much anticipated Apple education event and took little time in introducing the first of the three new releases. One of the first concerns he addressed was the state of the US education system, stressing that even the lucky kids who graduate may find themselves unable to compete in the global business world. Continue reading this article at RedmondPie.com

Apple today is holding its education-focused media event where it is widely expected to introduce a new push into digital textbooks. The event is scheduled to kick off at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City at 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 Pacific.

Back in September, we reported on a leaked document from cable and Internet provider Comcast revealing details on the company's forthcoming "AnyPlay" live television streaming service.

Apple is considering bidding for the rights to stream English Premier League (EPL) football matches, according to the Daily Mail . The EPL is the top football league in England, and one of the premiere football leagues in the world and the bidding for the television rights is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the teams and the league

The legal battle between Samsung and Apple has going on around the world with Apple claiming that Samsung had "slavishly" copied the iPad design. Apple and Samsung have traded lawsuits in a number of countries trying to get each other's products banned from sale.

While it seems obvious that the holiday gift-giving season is a strong driver for iOS device sales, as evidenced in part by past history and Apple's forecast of a blockbuster quarter, it is generally difficult to quantify that holiday boost before Apple reports device sales as part of its quarterly earnings or makes public statements about App Store milestones. A couple of analytics firms have, however, put out reports today seeking to offer some measure of the bump in demand for iOS devices and those of competing platforms such as Android. According to Flurry , both iOS and Android saw a "massive influx" of devices registering on the firm's servers, coming in through the over 140,000 apps using Flurry Analytics