Apple’s App Store is about to pass the 10 billion downloads mark, as iPhone, iPod touch and iPad owners continue to fill their boots with apps. The company’s website is counting down — or, rather, up — to the milestone, at a rate suggesting that the 10 billionth app will be downloaded sometime in the next …

PlayStation Phone? What PlayStation Phone? As the gaming world awaits the official debut of Sony Ericsson’s much-leaked gaming smart phone, Sony’s official new PlayStation app for Android and iPhone is giving a taste of what’s to come. Hold your horses: it doesn’t let you play games — yet. Instead, the app lets you connect to your PlayStation Network profile to …

After spending some quality time with RIM’s in-production BlackBerry PlayBook at CES, I can tell you it’s a beautiful 7-inch tablet. A sharp, high-resolution screen, pleasing rubberized perimeter, and gesture-based interface converge to create a piece of electronic equipment that I would proudly make my mini-computing companion. (Hands-on CNET videos here and here.) However, the PlayBook comes with several thick …

Steve Jobs, the iconic chief exec of Apple, has been granted permission by the company’s board of directors to take a medical leave of absence. He has placed chief operating officer Tim Cook in charge of the iPhone maker’s day-to-day activities. Jobs has battled pancreatic cancer for several years. In an email sent from Jobs to all Apple employees, Jobs …

Orange has launched the Tiny Top Ups scheme, allowing punters on pay as you go deals to add credit to their blower from as little as 10p. Under the new scheme, you can take your Joey Ramone into an Orange shop, deposit your loose change in the hand of the customer-service representative and demand satisfaction. A 10p top-up will allow you …

It looks like Samsung’s follow-up to the Samsung Galaxy S, the inventively nicknamed Galaxy S2, will be formally announced at Mobile World Congress — the massive phone trade show in Barcelona that kicks off on Valentine’s Day, 14 February. The MWC arrival was tipped by Korean newspaper Chosunilbo just before the new year, and new reports from etnews add fuel …

Nokia’s Ovi Music Unlimited service — which launched in 2008 here in the UK as Comes With Music — is to shut down in all but six countries. Nope, the UK isn’t one of them: it’s going. The news originally broke on E’s Phone Blog, which spied an announcement about the Finnish version of the service. Nokia has now said …

I have obstructive sleep apnoea, and though it’s not something I tell many people, it does give me the unusual opportunity to be able to test CPAP respiratory machines. Sleep apnoea is a huge part of my life, I rely on “my machine” and know that without it my next day will be a sleepy torture. (Credit: Fisher & Paykel) …

If you’re like most folks, your New Year’s resolutions included something like “lose weight” or “get in shape.” Easier said than done, right? Try FitnessClass, a new iPad app that serves up more than 200 workout videos. No trips to the gym, no fitting your workouts to someone else’s schedule–just on-demand professional classes for just about any kind of workout …

Forget RIM’s previous whack-a-doodle touchscreen efforts — the clicky-screened BlackBerry Storm or the chubby BlackBerry Torch slider. The latest touchscreen BlackBerry could bring us a design that’s easier to swallow, by simply adding touch to the iconic Qwerty ‘Berry. Photos of the phone, which is codenamed ‘Dakota’, were leaked on the Boy Genius tech blog. The Dakota looks similar to the …