News

'Twas slow for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) news last week; while there were several work days, I suspect the vast majority was still in holiday mode for the last few days of 2014 and the first couple of the new year. There were still several items of note though.

Apple's acquisition of Beats was further justified when Nielsen SoundScan released its year end statistics last week. The numbers showed a big trend toward streaming audio and a drop off in music purchases. According to the data, there were 164 billion streams in 2014, compared to 106 billion in 2013, a 54% increase. Album sales dropped 9%, to 117.6 million, while song sales dropped 12%, to 1.26 billion.

It was a slow week for App Store releases since Apple's iTunes Connect was shutdown from December 22-29, but there were a few noteworthy jailbreak tweaks released to Cydia over the holidays. Here's a quick look at some of the tweaks and the few apps released to Cydia and the App Store from 12/29/14 to 01/04/15. The App Store should start filling up again with new apps and games now that it has been open for one full week.

Apple's Free App of the Week is Icycle: On Thin Ice. The game will be free on the Apple App Store until 01/09/14. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook so you never miss a new App Store or Cydia release.

The Emojimo Keyboard is a new iOS 8 app that transforms almost every word you type into an emoji. This not only saves you time from having to search for the perfect emojicon, but it is also a fun way to annoy your friends.

The Emojimo Keyboard is easy to use, but first you must enable it on your iOS device. After you have installed the app on your iPhone or iPad, navigate to Settings > General > Keyboard and tap the "Keyboards" panel. Next, tap "Add New Keyboard" and select "Emojimo Automagical Keyboard" from the list of keyboard options. Finally, go back to the Keyboards screen and tap the newly added "Emojimo Automagical Keyboard" panel to activate the keyboard on your device.

Since smart phones revolutionized the mobile phone industry almost a decade ago, Christmas day has seen the most mobile device activations every year, and the trend continued in 2014. According to the analytics firm Flurry, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) handily beat the competition this holiday season, as evidenced by that metric over the week leading up to and including Christmas.

In its analysis, Flurry found that Apple accounted for 51% of device activations worldwide between December 19th and 25th. Samsung followed with 18% and Nokia accounted for about 6%.

Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) mobile payment system, Apple Pay, is off to a tremendous start just months after launch. Numerous U.S. retailers and financial institutions have jumped onboard and Apple Pay has already gained more traction than rivals' e-wallets, including Google Wallet, which launched over three years ago. Apple is now looking for Apple Pay support across the pond.

According to The Telegraph, Apple is currently in talks with several major British banks over its "wave and pay" service. Although all the major banks realize it would be foolish not to participate, there are some points of contention in the negotiations. At least one unnamed institution is concerned with the amount of personal data Apple intends to collect.