Optus breaks 8 million customers thanks to Apple iPhone

THE number of mobile customers at Optus has broken through 8 million, with users up 10.5 per cent on a year ago helped by consumer demand for "smart" phones.

The telco's parent, SingTel, which reports its first-quarter financial results today, said 213,000 new mobile and wireless broadband customers signed onto Optus in the June quarter, including 139,000 post-paid customers.

The company said the growth was underpinned by demand for the Apple iPhone, other smart phones and plans including unlimited calls and text messages in Australia.

Optus' 3G customers rose to 2.76 million in the quarter.

The telco also confirmed yesterday that its D3 satellite, which will allow television broadcasters to increase the number of channels they offer, will be launched on August 22.

The satellite will enable Optus to provide more services to its customers, including pay-TV provider Foxtel which has already said it will launch more than 25 new channels and a range of interactive services around October.

Optus' satellite director Paul Sheridan said the new satellite would increase Optus' satellite capacity, "support existing customers including Foxtel and Sky New Zealand and enable the development of new business opportunities for broadcast television and the direct-to-home market".

The satellite, which is Optus' ninth, is scheduled to be launched from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, off the north coast of South America.

It is expected to provide services for more than 15 years.

Optus has invested more than $600 million in the "D" satellite series, with D1 launched in October 2006 and D2 a year later.

In May, Optus signed a $100 million agreement to provide satellite services to the ABC for eight years.

Its main rival, Telstra, will also report its full-year results to the market today.

SingTel shares rose 3c, or 1.12 per cent, to $2.70. Telstrashares closed up 1c at $3.61.

U.S. company to offer digital textbooks on iPhone

U.S. digital course materials supplier CourseSmart announced on Tuesday that it is making its more than 7,000 college "e Textbooks" available on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

     With a free application on Apple's online App Store, students in the United States and Canada can buy their textbooks in electronic form at about half the price of print versions. They can also use iPhone or iPod Touch to quickly reference their e-textbooks in the classroom and even browse their notes, the company said.

    "We've seen significant demand from student customers for the ability to get required textbook content in electronic form on an iPhone or iPod Touch," Frank Lyman, executive vice president of CourseSmart, said in a statement.

    "We see incredible potential for iPhone and iPod Touch applications in education," he added.

    With the new free application, students can benefit from the advantages of mobile learning, "leaving their backpack and laptop behind," CourseSmart said in an introduction to its program.

    Founded in 2007 and located in San Mateo, California, CourseSmart is the largest digital course materials supplier in the United States and has partnered closely with major U.S. higher-education publishers.

    According to CourseSmart, college students on nearly 6,000 campuses in the United States and Canada are using its electronic textbooks.

Best of the Best iPhone Apps: New Book Rounds Them Up

It's one of the world's most successful retail launches in recent history: the Apple App Store. In only a year since its debut, the App Store now offers some 65,000 different apps. Apple claims more than 1.5 billion apps have been downloaded from its virtual shelves.

Granted, many are useless while others are silly and senseless; a couple of competing apps make fart noises. One could write a book that cuts through all the clutter-in fact, that's exactly what Josh Clark did in his Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders (O'Reilly, July 2009, $19.99).

[ Check out the hottest mobile apps for theBlackBerry and iPhone for summer travel, CIO reports. Learn valuable tips on how tocare for your iPhone. ]

The notion of a printed guide book covering something as dynamic as apps in an online app store that run on a deliciously digital device like the iPhone seems a bit outdated. It's akin to buying a two-day-old newspaper for a buck when you can get all the breaking news for free online.

That was my initial thinking when I picked up the guide book and read it over the weekend. But I quickly understood its value and Clark's reasoning behind its creation. There is an irony with longevity in a medium that changes by the minute: Only a handful of apps are really any good-and the good ones have staying power.

Clarks' guide breaks out 200 popular apps in seven categories: At Work, On the Town, At Leisure, At Play, At Home, On the Road, and For Your Health. I've listed some of Clark's choices in each category below.

The big criticism I have of Best iPhone Apps is that, in many cases, Clark doesn't go far enough in detailing the shortcomings of some apps.

For instance, one of his favorite apps for editing office documents is Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite (which happens to be mine, too). He adequately describes the main functions of the app, offers lessons on how to use the app in fairly non-technical language, and provides the app's logo and iPhone screen shots.

But the app has a major flaw, which Clark addresses in a mere two sentences: "Alas, the app can send but can't receive files by email (Mail won't let it read attachments, an unfortunate limitation.)" This means you can't edit received documents in Quickoffice (although you can view attachments in the iPhone's native mail app) and send out a new version. Yet this app bills itself as enabling iPhone users to edit office documents.

Another irksome quality of the guide: Some of the app descriptions, especially with games, read more like advertisements. So you don't get a sense of why this particular app was ranked the best in the category.

The many app logos throughout the color-coded guide should bring a smile to iPhone users. Many logos are familiar, and so users will get some satisfaction knowing that they chose the right apps for their iPhone. The many categories and familiar apps also show just how far the App Store has come in a year-and how quickly the iPhone has impacted virtually every area of our lives.

In addition to the best apps, the guide includes honorable mentions, which helps date the book. That is, if a hot app doesn't appear as the best app or didn't receive an honorable mention, then it's likely the guide was published before the app hit the App Store or became popular.

Here's a sampling of some of the best apps in each category:

At Work: Things, Goal Tender, reQuall, Jobs, Google Mobile App, Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, iThoughts, Bento, Print & Share, Skype, Vlingo, Air Mouse Pro, Jaadu VNC.

On the Town: Urbanspoon, OpenTable, Wine Steward, Yelp, Loopt, Park 'n Find, Now Playing, Artnear Pro, Local Concerts.

At Leisure: Facebook, Twitteriffic, BeejiveIM, Stanza, Dictionary.com, USA Today, Sportacular, Bloomberg, Instapaper, Shazam, Photogene, Postini, Brushes, TV.com, Koi Pond.

At Play: Rolando, Blue Defense1, Guitar Rock Tour, Monster Pinball, Topple 2, WordJong, Sudoku Unlimited, Texas Hold 'Em, SimCity, Deep Green Chess, Let's Golf, Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles, X-Plane 9.

On the Road: FlighTrack Pro, JetSet Expenses, AAA Discounts, Lonely Planet City Guides, Talking Phrasebooks, Google Earth, Rest Area.

For Your Health: Lose It!, iFitness, Breath Pacer, RunKeeper, GolfCard, Cychosis, Trails, AccuWeather.com