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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If you have a shiny new iPhone 4S as some of us do here at The Flickcast and you’ve experienced less-than-stellar battery life, this will be of interest to you. There’s been a few reports around the Internets, and elsewhere, that the iPhone 4S’s battery life leaves something to be desired.

Sure, it could have to do with the fact that it features a faster processor or that Siri is a bit power hungry. Or, as was postulated by the folks at iDownloadBlog, it could be the iPhone 4S’s Time Zone service that’s causing the problem.

Reportedly, a bug in iOS 5 (which ships on all iPhone 4S units) forces its location tracking feature to remain active much more than necessary which drains the phone’s battery far more quickly. Users can manually turn off the automatic time zone setting by going to Settings > General > Date & Time. Once there, toggling “Set Automatically” to “Off.”

We’ve tried this “fix” on a couple of our own devices and so far it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. That said, and this is in no way scientific, we tend to get pretty much the advertised battery life on our iPhone 4S units. So, maybe it’s actually a hardware problem on some units and not software after all? Or, perhaps it’s a carrier issue as our iPhone 4S units are all using Verizon and not AT&T?

Whatever the issue, Apple is usually pretty fast to issue a fix for these problems so expect to see one sooner rather than later. In the meantime, let us know if you try this “fix” and what your results are, if any.

For those of your doubting the demand for the new iPhone 4S and decrying it’s inevitable failure, we say it’s now time for you to stop hating Apple and realize that they know precisely what they’re doing. How can we be sure?

Apple has just announced that the company sold over 4 Million iPhone 4S handsets during the first weekend they were on sale. You can count some of us here at The Flickcast in that number too — especially Mr. Ullrich, who seems to get all the cool toys.

That’s more than double the amount when the iPhone 4 was lunched last year. Additionally, Apple says that over 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, and over 20 million have signed up for iCloud.

Apple is planning on launching the iPhone 4S in more than 90 countries by the end of the year, and has launched the device in 7 countries so far. So, you can imagine what its eventual sales figures will be.

Can you say astronomical? We can. And so can Apple.

Click through for the full press release from Apple. Have you picked up your iPhone 4S yet? If so, what’s you favorite feature so far?

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At an event held this morning at Apple’s Cupertino campus, newly minted Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled what many were expecting: a brand new iPhone. Dubbed the iPhone 4S, the device is cosmetically very similar to the current iPhone 4 but features a host of internal improvements which may appease fans eagerly awaiting an iPhone refresh.

In addition, Cook announced the release data for iOS 5, the software that powers Apple’s lineup of devices including the iPhone and iPad, as well as updated iPods with price cuts and an intelligent assistant, dubbed Siri, which enables user to verbally interact with their iOS devices.

Here’s the highlights of today’s event:

• Apple made the iPhone 4S official. It features the same Retina Display but features Apple’s dual-core A5 processor and a dual-core graphics chip.

• The iPhone 4S battery can provide 8 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of browsing time on 3G and 9 on Wi-Fi, 10 hours of video playback or 40 hours of music playback.

• Apple has redesigned the iPhone 4S antenna to switch between two antenna to send and receive. Hopefully how you hold the device won’t matter now.

• The iPhone 4S features HSPA+ 14.4 support, though Apple isn’t branding it as “4G.” It’s also a world phone, so one device will support CDMA and GSM/WCDMA networks around the globe. That means it will work on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint networks in the U.S.

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The time we all knew was coming has arrived. Today, in an open letter to the Apple board, CEO Steve Jobs officially announced his resignation from Apple, effective immedietly.

Here’s the text of the letter:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

Steve

In addition, Tim Cook has been promoted to CEO to replace Jobs and Jobs will assume the role of Chairman of the Board.

I wonder what this will do to the price of Apple’s stock tomorrow morning. As for what the future holds for the company, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.