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Apple announced a variable-pricing model for the music offered on the iTunes store.  The new, tiered pricing will be launched in the spring at the $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 price points.  Phil Schiller assured the crowd that more tracks would be priced toward the bottom tier than the top.

Additionally and perhaps more importantly, all music from the major labels will be available DRM-free in the iTunes Plus format by the end of Q1 2009.

Finally, label and carrier restrictions have been lifted for the iTunes Mobile Store on the iPhone and iPod Touch allowing over-the-air downloading of music with no artificial restrictions.  Pricing and content is identical to the desktop offerings.  Hopefully, video will come soon-

The Apple iTunes App Store is now serving more than 2 million apps daily.  When it was announced, it felt like a game-changer to me, but many analysts theorized that the initial hype would blow over.  At 2 million (and growing) this business is shaping up to be much more than hype.

It seems that predictions of a $1 billion market place are right on track for 2009. 

Following up on the unofficial news earlier last week that Apple had crossed the 10,000 app mark, Apple has announced 300 million downloaded apps.

The milestone was reported in ads placed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal rather than the typical press release.

Only one additional marker has been reported since the iTunes App Store first opened in July of this year.  In October, Apple reported 200 million apps downloaded and the availability of 5,000 apps.

Not bad.

According to website “148Apps,“ the Apple iTunes Apps Store has reached the 10,000 application milestone.

They’ve posted a nifty page showing mini icons for every application and a bit of interesting data on release frequency and cost distribution.

TechCrunch notes:

About 24% of apps are free; 35% cost $.99. The average cost is $3.12, including free apps. About 34% are games or entertainment, and there are 49 weather related apps for the iPhone despite the fact that a weather app is built in.

[via techcrunch]

Google released Google Earth for iPhone this morning.  The app integrates with the built in GPS for positioning, but obviously lets you explore the entire globe.  Great integration with Panoramio photos too-