For the first time digital music sold more than actual physical store sales of music, according to the latest results by Nielsen and Billboard. Digital Sales jumped by 8.4% to take 50.3% of the market. Physical sales dipped by 5%. Here are some interesting facts about this year in digital music sales:

• For the first time, digital music sales are larger than physical sales; accounting for 50.3% of all music purchases in 2011.
• Digital track sales set a new record with 1.27 billion sales in 2011; an increase of 100 million sales (8.4%) over 2010.
• Digital album sales exceeded 100 million for the first time with a new all-time high of 103.1 million sales (up from 86.3 million in 2010); an increase of nearly 20%.

• Digital album sales accounted for nearly 1 out of every 3 album purchases (31%) in 2011; compared to 26% in 2010, 20% in 2009, 15% in 2008, 10% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2006.
• Nearly all digital album genres had a positive year in 2011; except for Soundtracks which were down just over 2% compared to 2010.
• For the last week of 2011 (week ending 1/1/2012), digital album sales set a new high with sales of 3.5 million

Clearly people were eager to download even more music during the festive season, or maybe a lot of people needed to fill up their new music player or phone with some songs. Adele’s 21 was the year’s top selling album, and is also the best selling digital album of all time.

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I decided against doing a full iPhone 4S review – the simple fact is that the iPhone 4S is not a massive jump from the iPhone 4, and you will be quite familiar with the 4S if you have ever used an iPhone 4. But the thing about Apple fans is that they always want the latest and greatest. Luckily I was up for an upgrade from Vodacom, so here we are.

I am doing this review from the viewpoint of a long time iPhone user – I am comparing it to previous iPhones, of which I have owned every version since launch. While I use different phones with different operating systems almost every week, my primary phone is still an iPhone. I am not comparing it to the latest Galaxy Optimus Black Nexus LTE Droid RAZR Defy Plus. I have great respect for some of the latest Android superphones, but right now I am simply going to address the iPhone 4S from the viewpoint of an iPhone user. So here goes.

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One of the major criticisms of Android phones of late is the apparent lack of official updates that land on the devices. Where some other operating systems keep on upgrading existing phones even a few years after production, Android users in many cases will not get any updates at all. There is a variety of reasons for that – one of the major reasons being customized interfaces or skins that need a lot of work from the manufacturers to be rewritten for new software versions. Luckily Google brings out one reference device, called the “Nexus” about once a year with the launch of major operating system upgrades, and these phone typically get new software updates before any manufacturer.

The latest phone to have the Nexus moniker is Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus – a phone that keeps a pure Android interface free of any skins, and more significantly, the first phone to officially ship with Android 4.0, called Ice Cream Sandwich. If the whole iPhone hype is not for you, the Galaxy Nexus makes a very compelling argument.

“Samsung and Google have closely collaborated to push the mobile experience forward. We are pleased to deliver the best and latest Android smartphone experience for customers with GALAXY Nexus. We will continue to move forward with the Android platform to provide the most compelling consumer experience in the mobile world,” says Paulo Ferreira, Head of Mobile Product and Business Solutions at Samsung.

“Ice Cream Sandwich demonstrates the Android platform’s continued innovation with this release which works on phones and tablets seamlessly (and everything in between). Features like Android Beam and Face Unlock show the innovative work our team is doing, and GALAXY Nexus showcases the power behind Ice Cream Sandwich,” said Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile for Google. (more…)

Finally we have some idea when Apple’s iPhone 4S will be landing in SA. On Vodacom’s website their iPhone 4S registration page just went live. Luckily the wait is not too long – 16 December is only a couple of weeks away, and you can pre-register for it right now.

In the past these pre-registration forms are next to useless, so if you are desperate to get one, you might want to rather get your name on a few lists at stores close to you. There is also no news yet on what deals will be made available, but with MTN also getting the iPhone 4S, some competition might keep the prices reasonable. (more…)

Research In Motion today announced that the BlackBerry Curve 9360 will be available from MTN, Vodacom and CellC.

“The BlackBerry Curve series is already incredibly popular in South Africa and we think customers will be very impressed with this new model and with the new BlackBerry 7 operating system. The BlackBerry Curve 9360 makes it easier than ever to stay socially connected and offers a significant performance boost with a much faster and smoother web browsing experience,” says Rui Brites, Director of Product Management for Africa at RIM.

The new BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone is ergonomically designed with a comfortable and iconic keyboard for fast, accurate typing and an optical trackpad for easy, one-handed navigation. GPS and Wi-Fi support are also included, as well as a 5MP camera with flash and video recording so that memories can be captured and instantly shared on social networks. The microSD/SDHC slot supports up to 32 GB memory cards for additional media storage.

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We have been waiting to see what would be the first phone to come from Google’s Motorola acquisition, but now we know. Say hello to the new Motorola RAZR. Boasting a sculpted glass face, diamond-cut aluminum accents and a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display, the Motorola RAZR also sports KEVLAR fiber and Gorilla Glass to help the screen stand up to scratches and scrapes. In fact, every part of Motorola RAZR is protected by a splash-guard coating – even the electrical boards inside.

Inside it is pretty great as well – 1GB of RAM hooks up with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and Android 2.3 to get you a fast user interface and the  plenty of power for multitasking. You can also find 802.11n wifi, and 16 GB of memory and a large 1780 mAh battery.

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Owning an Android device means that you’ll try out a large number of applications over time. Sometimes there are so many that writing a single post for each and every one of them doesn’t really make sense – so we’re introducing a new series of posts that will showcase a few applications at once. This first iteration looks at a few South African centred applications, either developed locally, or targeting the local market.

BatteryFu (Free)
Probably one of the first applications to come out of South Africa, BatteryFu by local developer Toby Kurien helps you get more out of your device’s battery by periodically toggling mobile data (or Wi-Fi) – so your device is only connected and checking your accounts for a short period of time. A novel idea, and one that apparently works very well.

BatteryFu features:

• Lean and fast (see download size!)
• APNdroid support (use if data is not switching off)
• Widget: tap icon to toggle, tap text to config
• Data while screen is on, with screen off delay
• Data while charger is plugged in
• 3rd party app support (using intents)
• Travel mode (wifi off)

Computicket (Free) (more…)

See yourself as a bit of a WordPress wizz, or want to learn a whole lot more? The upcoming WordCamp conference in Cape Town might just be the best way to quickly get in touch with some of the best minds and communities working with WordPress in SA today. WordCamps are informal, community-organized conferences about everything WordPress.

WordCamp Cape Town 2011 will be a great networking and learning event – every gets to participate, share ideas and get to know each other. WordCamp CT 2011 is the second WordCamp to be hosted in SA, with the first WordCamp SA hosted in 2008. This time round expect some top notch speakers from around the globe.

WordCamp Cape Town 2011 will offer 2 tracks of talks and workshops, each offering sessions hosted by some of the most interesting WordPress professionals from South Africa and the International community.
The tracks are:
● Publisher Track – This track will focus on the role of content in WordPress Web development, including blogging, content creation, content management and content strategy.
● Tech/Development – The development track will be focused on the more technical aspects of developing with WordPress, including Plugins, User Interface design and scalability.

The full list and Bio’s of our speaker are available online at http://2011.capetown.wordcamp.org/speakers/

The day will begin at 8:30 am and end at 6:00pm on Thursday the 15th of September.

Date: 15 September 2011
Venue: The Atlantic Imbizo, V&A Waterfront
Location: Cape Town

For more info goto: http://2011.capetown.wordcamp.org/about/