Thursday Morning News

ICloud now has 85 million users, and Gruber himself thinks iCloud is one of the most important Apple services yet. "I think Steve Jobs had his fingers in as many projects as he could manage in his final year, but it’s no coincidence that his last product announcement was iCloud."

Apple has now paid over $4 billion to developers in App Store revenue, thanks in part to the 315 million iOS devices sold cumulatively. Both impressive milestones for Apple.

It's no secret that Apple sold 37 million iPhones last quarter, and that makes them the world's largest smartphone maker. Samsung are the only ones snapping at their heels with 35 million smartphones sold —*but when you take into account the many models of Samsung devices compared with the three variants of iPhone available, the difference between Apple and Samsung start to become a little more clear.

In another mind-blowing stat, there were only eight iBooks textbooks available at launch, and already there are reports saying that iBooks textbooks downloads numbered 350,000 in a week.

Ars go hands-on with the new iTunes U app, bringing great educational material to your iOS device. The app seems very similar to the iBooks one, allowing you to download iTunes U material from within the app instead of syncing it across, and iTunes U itself is as great as it ever was.

Apple purchased a lot of semiconductors in 2011, to the tune of 35% growth over their purchases in 2010. This makes Apple the largest customer of semiconductor vendors in 2011. It's probably no surprise that Samsung was second both years (2010 and 2011), but somewhat more surprisingly, HP fell from first to third. Not selling enough TouchPads, maybe.

Virgin America has named one of their 36 Airbus A320s in honour of Steve Jobs, painting "stay hungry, stay foolish" on the aircraft's fuselage directly beneath the cockpit. If nothing more than a free piece of PR, it's a good tribute.

The touch-oriented Wikly calendar for iPad is reviewed by iPad AppStorm as an easy to use app which features gestures which let you visualise your calendar. It's perhaps not for those with epically busy schedules, but it perfect for those looking for a little fun in their day (planner).

Wondered how to take screenshots of that gorgeous (and interactive!) iTunes artwork screensaver in Lion? Wonder no more, OS X Daily share the secret.

Snippets of Adam Lashinky's Inside Apple have been making news all over the Apple rumour-sphere, and the good news is that you can now purchase the book from our very own iBookstore for $20.

Meanwhile, in Australia... it's Australia Day! If you're sick of the Hottest 100, I've got something you can listen to...