The Verge reports that Best Buy has been surveying some of its customers on proposed products and services, with the company including a description of a 42-inch "Apple HDTV" priced at $1499. The listing is undoubtedly simply a concept dreamed up by Best Buy to help gauge interest in such an offering, but provides an interesting perspective on what the major electronics retailer might be hoping for and what it thinks its customers would want in an Apple television set.

Samsung aired another of its series of Apple-mocking commercials during the 2012 Super Bowl tonight. In this ad, Samsung is pushing the new Samsung Galaxy Note .

After a couple of issues with some software updates, Apple has made some quiet revisions to address the problems. The first was a Snow Leopard security update which inadvertently caused problems with Apple's PowerPC emulation layer Rosetta. Macworld notes that Apple has since released Security Update 2012-001, version 1.1 for Snow Leopard.

Some iTunes Match users are encountering difficulties when attempting to download songs they have previously uploaded to iTunes Match. Matched songs appear unaffected for most users. Threads on both the MacRumors Forums and the Apple Support Communities detail the issues

Earlier today, Japanese blog Macotakara claimed that Apple will be holding an "unusual" event in February, backtracking somewhat on its earlier claim of an early February iPad 3 event . The Loop 's well-connected Jim Dalrymple now reports that Apple will not hold an event in February, indicating that observers waiting for the iPad 3 or other major announcement from Apple will need to hold out until at least March. This is not going to happen, according to my sources

Following yesterday's release of OS X 10.7.3 , a number of users in our forums and at Apple's discussion forums began reporting issues with the update. The most serious of these issues seems to be widespread crashing of apps generally accompanied by an artwork error in the crash notice window in which the window's buttons are replaced with graphics showing "CUI" and question marks. In general, users have found that applying the combo version of the OS X 10.7.3 update rather than the standard delta version typically offered via Software Update will fix the issues.

Indian business newspaper Mint reports ( via iPhone Hacks ) that Apple may be preparing to open retail stores in India, dramatically increasing the company's presence in the country. Apple Inc. may open its own shops following the Indian government allowing full ownership of single-brand retail stores by foreign companies, according to a senior official of the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP).

Earlier this week, Apple announced that it would be launching the iPhone 4S in 22 new countries on January 13, with China being the highest-profile debut in the group. Bloomberg now reports that China Unicom, Apple's existing iPhone carrier partner in the country, has released details on pricing that include a free iPhone 4S for users subscribing to contracts coming in at as little as $45 per month

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