As far as music services go, iTunes has pretty much been the dominant player for several years. However, Spotify has made great strides and has become a personal favorite of many members of The Flickcast staff. But as good as the service is, there’s been something lacking: an iPad app.

Fortunately, the company is changing that today. That’s right, Spotify has announced that its iPad application is now available in Apple’s App Store. The free app allows premium Spotify subscribers to access the services huge library of music, stream tracks and playlists, and share songs.

The new Spotify iPad app also features gapless playback, a crossfade function and AirPlay integration, allowing users to stream music wirelessly from the iPad to AirPlay-compatible devices. In other words, if your an ipad and Spotify user, this is just the thing you’ve been waiting for.

On a side note, if you’re a Spotify user and want to listen to music at home I highly recomment pairing the service with some Sonos speakers. The Sonos Play 5 / Spotify combo is really hard to beat.

Check out a video highlighting all the new features of Spotify for iPad, as well as the full press release, after the break.

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Developing apps for the iPhone, iPad and other iOS devices is a booming business. There’s also money to be made developing apps for the Mac and Mac OS X as well.

There’s so much to gain, and Apple wants to keep developers as happy as they can, that the company holds an annual developer’s conference in San Francisco to make sure everyone is on the same page and to help developers get all the tools they need to create great apps. In fact, the company just announced that its Worldwide Developer Conference will take place in San Francisco from June 11th to June 15th.

For the event, Apple is providing over 100 sessions on iOS and OS X, in addition to a student scholarship program. If you’re a first-time developer of apps for the iPhone or a seasoned veteran, this even surely offers a great deal of useful information and contact building.

Read on for all the details from Apple’s official press release.

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Remember back before we had multi-billion dollar movies in theaters showcasing our favorite heroes doing the things we had them doing with action figures in your garage decades ago? Just me? Probably, but that doesn’t mean most of you didn’t want to do the same, and now DC and LEGO are giving you the chance to do it in style with their brand new app, LEGO Super Heroes Movie Maker.

The app is to celebrate the new marriage of LEGO and Warner Bros.’ famed DC list of characters, in the DC Super Heroes line of toys and video games. The app works pretty simply, but is also perfect for those with a good amount of time and patience. Here’s how they break it down.

Bring the LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes to life with the LEGO DC Super Heroes Movie Maker. The free app lets you bring your blocks to life using simple tools and guides that make it easy to shoot, edit, even score your movie with music. Add one of the customizable title cards and share your directorial debut online.

You can get the app now for free in the iTunes App Store, or just wait for it to hit your non-iPhone sometimes soon. In the meantime, check out their trailer for the app after the jump.

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For screenwriters in Hollywood and elsewhere, the usual software tool for writing that million dollar screenplay is Final Draft. The software has been around for years, is used by most every TV and film production, and currently sits at version 8.0.

Of course, now that devices like the iPad are so popular, many writers (myself included) are wishing for a version of Final Draft that will run on it. I’m pretty sure that piece of software is coming. The pent up demand is there, it’s just a matter of time before it’s satisfied.

In the mantime, the makers of Final Draft have seen fit to release the Final Draft Reader application for the iPad. And while it isn’t a fully-featured screenplay writing app, what it does do, it does quite well.

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Back in the early days of non-linear video editing Avid was the king. Their software was used in pretty much every situation and they dominated the post-production landscape for film and TV.

Then, Apple came out with Final Cut Pro and things changed. Plus, Avid ended up having some issues of its own which hindered it further.

Now, with Apple having issues with Final Cut Pro X, Avid has released its first application to compete with Apple’s iMovie mobile. The app is called Avid Studio for the iPad and is currently available in the App Store for an introductory price of $4.99. After 30 days it will increase to $8.

With this app just being released, its too early to tell if it will knock Apple’s iMovie off its perch as the iOS editing app du jour. However, it does have some nice features and a few iMovie doesn’t have, so chances are people will at least give it a chance — especially at that low price point.

Big day for Apple and the education market today as our favorite fruit-flavored tech company revealed at an event in New York City that it will, as we discussed last week, be getting into the textbook publishing business in a big way. Apple’s VP of marketing Phil Schiller announced several new components of the initiative including iTunes U as a separate iOS app, which gives users of Apple’s new iBooks 2 iOS app access to textbooks from several top publishers to be read on the iPad.

The new textbooks are modern and interactive instead of plain old paper. They support multitouch gestures and also feature dictionary look-up integration and annotation. Students can even highlight text, take notes and create virtual note cards to reference later while studying. Wish this was around when I was in school.

At launch, high school-level textbooks are available in the iBookstore and priced at $14.99 or less. Expect more textbooks to come along in the near future. The first group of publishers with textbooks available for the iPad include Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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It didn’t do it as fast as the iTunes store did for IOS apps but still, this milestone is pretty impressive. What am I talking about? Well, according to Apple, its Mac App Store has has now served more than 100 million downloads to eager customers who appreciate not having to buy a boxed product.

”In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

See, pretty impressive. With numbers like these you have to wonder what exactly Apple has made from this? Like the iOS store, you can bet the company gets a percentage and, if rumors are to be believed, a pretty decent one.

Not bad Apple, not bad. At least we don’t have to worry about you going out of business like we used to back in the 90s. Let’s keep it that way, okay?

Click through for the full press release from Apple about this milestone.

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With the popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and myriad of Android-powered handsets, one of the things users love to do is take and share photos with friends and family. One of the best apps for doing this when using the iPhone is Instagram.

This app allows you to take a photo, manipulate it if you choose and then upload it to your photo stream for all to see. People can then subscribe to your photo stream and view your photos on their devices. Or, you can upload them to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.

It’s extremely popular on the iPhone (many of us here use it, in fact) but so far, it’s only been available for iOS devices. Apparently, that’s not going to be the case much longer.

Speaking during the LeWeb conference in Paris this week, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed that an Android version of the company’s popular iOS application is coming soon. ”We have two people working on Android now,” Systrom said.

I know what you’re thinking. Two people doesn’t sound like very many. However, keep in mind that the whole company probably isn’t that much bigger and has been exclusively an iOS app since launch.

No launch date was forthcoming from Systrom but we expect to see the Android version of Instagram sometime early next year.

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of apps out there for the iPad and iPhone. Many of them are even useful and, on occasion, fun to use. You can add Flipboard to that list.

In case you haven’t tried it yet, Flipboard is a very popular magazine-style news application which, up until today, was available only for the iPad. Now, those of you who want the same experience on your iPhone or, for some reason, don’t have an iPad yet, can now enjoy Flipboard on your iPhone because it’s now available.

The app allows users to flip through a single feed of articles and photos that have been shared across various social networks. It can also display stories from a variety of news categories including technology, design, “Flipboard picks,” photography, business, sports, style, travel, food and more.

It’s a great app that really helps you digest a lot of information quickly and easily and does it inside a very user-friendly interface. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Flipboard for iPhone is free and available in the App Store now.

You may have heard of a little game called Call of Duty: Black Ops. In fact, before the more recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, it was the best selling first person shooter game of all time on the XBox 360, PS3 and PC.

But what if you didn’t have and XBox or were on the road and wanted to play it on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch? Well, up until today you were out of luck. Fortunately, your luck is changing . . . for the better.

That’s right kids today Activision has released Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Here’s all the scoop from the official press release:

Adapted from Treyarch’s best-selling console hit, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and built specifically for Apple mobile devices, Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies delivers a Zombies experience never before seen on mobile along with 50 levels of cult-favorite Dead-Ops Arcade, providing the ultimate undead challenge for fans of Call of Duty’s signature Zombies mode. Featuring Voice Chat for a true Call of Duty style multiplayer experience, the title allows gamers to play solo or join a team of up to four to take down hordes of zombies.

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Apple on Thursday (or today if you’re reading this, well, on Thursday) released iOS 5.0.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This update reportedly fixes a number of issues with the operating system.

According to Apple, the update fixes bugs affecting battery life, adds Multitasking Gestures for the original iPad, resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud and improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation. Actually, I’m pretty happy about that last one as the Australian Siri really had a hard time understanding me.

iOS 5.0.1 is compatible with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation) and iPod touch (3rd generation). To install the update, launch the Settings app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap General, and then open Software Update.

You can also update the old fashioned way by syncing your device with iTunes. Let us know how it goes if you do update.

Ok music creation fans who don’t have iPads, your time has come. That’s right, Apple has today official dropped the Garage Band app for iPhone and iPod Touch.

As you probably know, prior to today, it was only available for OS X-running Macs and on the iPad. But no more. Now you can compose the next great song while sitting in the waiting room of your doctor’s office or on the toilet. Just be sure to use headphones . . and wash your hands.

“GarageBand on iPad has been a big hit and we think customers will love using it on their iPhone or iPod touch,” Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Philip Schiller said. “The innovative Multi-Touch interface combined with Smart Instruments makes it easy to create great sounding music, even if you’ve never studied music or played an instrument before.”

GarageBand is available in iTunes for $4.99 to new users or for free to those who already own the app on an iPad. It is supported by the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the third and fourth-generation iPod touch. Click through for the full press release from Apple.

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