TV

Apple airs its first Siri TV ad

In typical Apple (AAPL) style, the focus is on the product and what it can do for you.

iTunes grows its (tiny) share of online digital movies

Apple looks like a pretty big fish in the video on demand business -- if you ignore Netflix

If all you saw was the pie chart at right, produced from data issued Monday by iSuppli, you might think that Apple (AAPL) had succeeded in doing to digital video what it did to digital music.

According to iSuppli, now a unit of IHS (IHS), iTunes' share of U.S. consumer spending for movie MORE

What Facebook means to Netflix

While new board member Reed Hastings can help Facebook, the social network has a lot to offer Netflix as well.

FORTUNE -- Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings made a strategically brilliant move for the business Friday when he announced plans to join Facebook's board of directors. Since it was founded in 1997, Netflix (NFLX) has risen from a start-up that took down Blockbuster with its red-enveloped videos by mail to the MORE

Mixed reviews for the latest 'I'm a PC' television ads

Microsoft's new marketing campaign seems to be stuck in a time warp of Apple's making

Reactions to the new Microsoft TV ads -- the first of which aired Monday night (video below the fold) and featured a young woman who is persuaded to accept a free state-of-the-art Windows 7 PC by a salesman who secretly built a computer store in her home -- run, like water faucets, either hot or cold.

Half MORE

AirPlay's hidden agenda: Apple TV sets

Steve Jobs may have found a way to get TV makers to put Apple's technology in their sets

Apple (AAPL) is talking to television makers about building a new generation of HDTV sets with Apple TV technology built in.

That's the thrust of the report Bloomberg posted Wednesday that cites "two people familiar with the project" and quotes a Pioneer vice president on the record as saying "Apple connectivity in AirPlay is MORE

Apple still owns movie downloads

Despite fierce competition, iTunes commanded a 64% share of the (legal) market in 2010

The online movie market may be Apple's (AAPL) to lose, but it hasn't lost it yet.

According to an IHS Screen Digest report issued Monday by iSuppli, the iTunes Store's share of the U.S. market for downloaded movies (see below re streaming) fell nearly 10 points last year, from 74.4% in 2009 to 64.5% in 2010.

But as IHS MORE

Santa does FaceTime

A video Christmas card from the elves in Cupertino

For those of us who missed it because we spend more time on the Internet than we do watching advertising-supported television -- which will soon be most Americans, according to Forrester Research -- here's the iPhone ad Apple (AAPL) started airing Monday.

Also available as a QuickTime download at apple.com.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Verizon signs up for Google ads on FiOS

Another big partnership will allow Google to sell ad spots on Verizon FiOS TV.

There seems to be no end to the business opportunities for Google (GOOG) and Verizon (VZ).  Not only are the two companies building a strong Android coalition on Verizon's wireless network (and co-authoring net-neutrality proposals), today Verizon signed up with GoogleTV ads on its FiOS network.

Today we've strengthened the reach of the Google TV Ads platform even further by MORE

Steve Jobs: Game Changer

With Apple's CEO, Bloomberg's documentary team has found a subject worthy of the format

The first of Bloomberg TV's Game Changer series -- the 25-minute biopic on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg that aired last week -- turned out to be relatively weak tea. Its subject was too young and the story a bit too shallow to justify the breathless voice-over and graphical pyrotechnics.

The Steve Jobs episode that aired Thursday night, and MORE

11,700,000,000 song downloads and other Apple milestones

Steve Jobs loves to rattle off nice round numbers, and he just delivered a ton of them

Here, in descending order, are the ones we heard at Apple's (AAPL) fall product review Wednesday. Assume each was preceded with a "more than" or "over" unless otherwise indicated.

11.7 billion songs downloaded from iTunes
6.5 billion apps downloaded from the App Store, 200 per second
1.5 billion game and entertainment downloads to the iPod touch
450 million MORE