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Apple has announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail. Browett, who will report to Apple CEO Tim Cook, was previously CEO of European technology retailer Dixons, a title he had held since 2007. Browett will join Apple in April, and be responsible for Apple’s retail strategy, as well as the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world. Prior to Dixons, Browett held a series of executive positions at Tesco, advised retail and consumer goods clients at Boston Consulting Group, and earned a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University before receiving his MBS from Wharton Business School. He replaces Ron Johnson, who left Apple late last year to become CEO of retailer J.C. Penney.

“Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple.”

Spigen SGP has introduced its Glas.t screen protector for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S. Unlike traditional screen protectors, the Glas.t is made from oleophobic coated, chemically treated glass, which attaches using a strong silicone adhesive. According to the company, no gap is left between the LCD and the Glas.t when installed, and thus the touch screen sensitivity is supposedly unaffected. The material is also said to offer a hardness of 8-9H, or three times stronger than PET film. Spigen SGP’s Glas.t screen protector for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S is available now and sells for $28; for more information, see our First Look article.

Byte² has released a major update to Office² designed to bring the advanced document editing features of Office² HD to the iPhone and iPod touch. The latest update to Office² provides a variety of new layout tools for working with Microsoft Word documents including multi-column layouts, text boxes, page rulers, file versioning and the ability to insert shapes and section breaks. Images can now be set to float above text and support for headers, footers, footnotes and endnotes has also been added in the update. Saved documents now preserve existing content and formatting for proper collaborative sharing between Office² on the iPhone and Microsoft Office on the desktop. Office² is available from the App Store for $6.

iPhoneso has released Gekko, a new universal financial and stock news browser app for iOS devices. Designed to provide a simple and intuitive interface, Gekko allows investors to keep track of financial markets, providing stock and financial news in an iOS-optimized presentation without additional distractions such as ads or pop-up windows. The app provides a collection of pre-defined sources to get new users started or users can choose to add their own preferred financial news feeds. Favourite news items can be saved to services such as Evernote, Instapaper and Read It Later or shared via Twitter, e-mail or SMS/iMessage. The application also integrates with the Yahoo API for searching for stock symbols and quotes and allows users to view raw data associated with any given stock. Gekko is a universal app requiring iOS 5.0 or later and is available from the App Store for $5.

Sockii has released Shoppie, a simple shopping list manager and planner for the iPhone and iPod touch. Designed with a focus on ease of use, Shoppie provides a UI design reminscent of the iOS 5 Reminders app with support for multiple shopping lists and the ability to swipe between them along with additional columns for quantity and price information. A total price for each list is displayed at the bottom and Shoppie can be configured to display the total of all items in the list or only those items that have been checked off. Shoppie includes iCloud support for automatically synchronizing lists across multiple iOS devices and users can also e-mail or print their shopping lists directly from within the application. Shoppie requires iOS 4.2 or later, with iOS 5.0 or later required for iCloud support, and is available from the App Store for $2.

SmileOnMyMac has released an iPad version of PDFpen, its popular PDF annotation and editing software for Mac OS X. The iPad version of PDFpen brings an advanced set of PDF editing features to iOS such as the ability to add text, images, signatures, comments and annotations to PDF documents, make changes to existing editable text blocks and images and fill out PDF forms. Advanced annotation features include highlighting, underscoring and strikethrough along with a collection of pre-defined proofreading symbols that can be applied to a PDF document along with drawing support for freehand scribbles and standard shapes. PDFpen also allows users to e-mail documents out directly from the device or save them to Dropbox, Evernote or Google Docs; iCloud integration allows documents to be automatically synchronized between multiple iPads and PDFpen for Mac OS X. PDFpen for iPad is available from the App Store for an introductory price of $10.

Apple has implemented a new lottery reservation system for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S sales in Hong Kong that it hopes will help limit the efforts of scalpers. 9to5Mac reports that the new system should prevent the scalpers from using automated bots to overwhelm Apple’s reservations servers by requiring prospective buyers to give both a name and ID number, which need to match a government ID presented at the time of purchase. It is unclear if Apple plans to expand the use of the system to other areas and countries; the full text of Apple’s message regarding the change appears below.

“Due to high demand, we are accepting a limited number of iPhone reservations per day. To request an iPhone reservation, please choose your store and the iPhone you want. If we have an iPhone reservation for you, you’ll receive a confirmation email by 9:00 p.m. tonight that includes the time when you can pick up your iPhone tomorrow. A government-issued photo ID matching the name and ID number on your reservation is required for iPhone purchases. If you don’t receive an email, we were unable to reserve an iPhone for you, and you can try again another time. Only those who receive an email confirming their reservation will be able to purchase an iPhone; we will not be selling iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S to walk-in customers.”

After months of backlog, Apple appears to have finally reached a supply/demand balance on the iPhone 4S, at least in the United States. A quick check of the company’s online store shows all three iPhone 4S capacities—in both black and white—as “In Stock”, suggesting that new orders likely ship out as soon as the payment can be processed. During last week’s financial results conference call, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed the overwhelming demand for the iPhone 4S, saying that the company made a “large bet” in building as many units as it did, but still “bet too low”, as it ended the quarter with a backlog of orders. [via Electronista]

Omer Shoor has updated Photogene² for iPhone and Photogene for iPad adding the ability to order print products directly from within the app, support for inter-device photo transfers and several new editing features. With the latest version, users can now order physical photo products such as greeting cards and magnets via tap2print and take advantage of new editing tools such as a clarity slider and clone tool. The update also allows users to create their own presets and copy-and-paste edits between multiple photos.

Both the iPad and iPhone versions also now have the ability to transfer photos directly between the Photogene apps running on two different iOS devices and upload photos directly to Evernote and Tumblr. iOS 5 users can also now preserve original file names when uploading photos to Dropbox, FTP or sending via e-mail and add date-stamps to exported photos. Photogene for iPad also gains the ability to copy and paste IPTC data between photos and set star ratings in full-size view for users who have purchased the Pro upgrade pack. Photogene² for iPhone ($1) and Photogene for iPad ($3) are both available from the App Store.

After being fined late last year by the Italian antitrust authority for failing to inform its customers of their legal right to two years of technical support, Apple has posted a new notice regarding the case on its online store in the country. Ars Technica reports that the Italian Apple Store now features a prominent link at the top which leads to directly to the court decision, which contains an explanation of how Apple must change its marketing language for its AppleCare Protection Plans to reflect the mandatory two-year warranty. Apple’s products typically come with only a one-year limited warranty.

The latest edition of iLounge Weekly, our weekly newsletter covering all things iLounge, will be arriving in subscribers’ inboxes Monday morning. iLounge Weekly is a summary of the week’s best news, reviews, and feature articles we’ve published, and it also features giveaways and accessory discount offers from various companies. There’s still plenty of time to sign up and receive this week’s edition — just use the simple form below to submit your email address, if you haven’t done so already.

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Also, if you haven’t yet entered our iBattz Battery Case and Mission Workshop Giveaways, this is your final weekend to do so. In the iBattz Battery Case Giveaway, iLounge and iBattz are giving away ten iBattz Mojo Removable Battery Cases, while in the Mission Workshop Giveaway, iLounge and Mission Workshop are giving away three backpacks, one each of the Waxed Canvas Small Weatherproof Rucksack, VX Messenger Bags // AP Series, and VX Small Rucksack // AP Series. To enter, simply fill out and submit the form on the giveaway pages, which are linked above. The giveaways will end on January 31, 2012 at 11:59PM Pacific Time. Good luck!

Yamaha Music Interactive has released NoteStar, a new advanced digital sheet music application for the iPad. NoteStar provides a hands-free, smooth-flowing transcription of keyboard sheet music synchronized with professionally recorded audio backing tracks that allow users to play along as if they were in the band. Sheet music display is handled automatically and the app provides playback control features including A-B looping, track muting and metronome support. A variety of note size and layout options are available with automatic sheet music resizing to provide customizable views of the sheet music and the app supports both portrait and landscape orientations. Users can also choose to play songs in different key signatures or a half or three-quarter speeds without changing the pitch. The app provides an extensive library of popular songs available for in-app purchase for $4 each; one free song download is included with online registration. NoteStar is available from the App Store as a free download.

Mac Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software developer Ntractive has released a native iPad version of its Elements CRM app. Building upon Ntractive’s desktop cloud application, Elements CRM for iPad provides a user experience on the iPad that looks, works and feels like a desktop app. Elements CRM for iPad has been optimized for iOS 5 and integrates features such as AirPrint support for the ability to print invoices and other documents directly from within the app. The iPad version is designed to allow users to carry their entire customer relationship management system around with them on the go, with the same functionality as the Elements CRM Mac app and data accessed directly from the cloud, facilitating instantaneous collaboration with other team members. The Elements CRM for iPad app requires iOS 5.0 or later and is available from the App Store as a free download. A monthly subscription to the standard Elements CRM cloud service is required to use the app as well as an additional subscription to Elements CRM Mobile. Small business subscription pricing starts at $25/user/month with the Mobile add-on priced at an additional $10/user/month.

Telltale Games has released Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space for iOS. The latest instalment in the classic comedic gaming series brings back the eponymous dog and hyperkinetic lagomorph duo Sam & Max to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad platform with the release of the first episode in the new series, Ice Station Santa. In the initial episode players must help the Freelance Police duo fight the most ancient and powerful opponent they’ve yet faced: Santa Claus and save the world’s children from a holiday tainted by tears, turmoil and Torture-Me-Elmer toys. This latest title also includes two iOS exclusive features: a ‘Whack da Ratz’ mini-game where players can compete for the top score in the Freelance Police Hall of Fame and a soundboard to allow players to create new and deranged quotes from their favourite Sam & Max lines. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space Episode 1 is a universal app and requires an iPhone 3GS/4/4S, third- or fourth-generation iPod touch or iPad running iOS 4.2 or later and is available from the App Store for $7.

Former Palm CEO and Apple senior vice president Jon Rubenstein has left HP effective today. AllThingsD reports that Rubenstein is said to have no immediate plans after fulfilling a 12-24 month commitment to stay at the company following its acquisition of Palm. “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” said HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan. Rubenstein, commenting to AllThingsD, said, “I am going to take a well deserved break after four and a half years of developing webOS.” Best known for his work on the iPod—he was senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division when he left the company—Rubenstein joined the private equity firm Elevation Partners shortly after it invested in Palm, and became Palm CEO in 2009 before taking an executive position at HP after the acquisition.

Gear4 has announced that it will soon launch its Renew SleepClock system for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod in the United States. Sporting a top-mounted dock, the SleepClock uses an advanced no-contact sensor to sense the users’ breathing rate, when they’re in light or deep sleep, if they leave their bed at night, and when they’re trying to go to sleep—adjusting their sleep soundtrack appropriately in the latter case, and waking them at the most appropriate time within a pre-set wake-up range. Other features include integration with the free Renew app for tracking sleep patterns over time, built-in speakers, an FM radio, and the ability to charge the docked device. Gear4’s Renew SleepClock will be available in the U.S. beginning in March and will sell for $200.

Samsung has lost its second patent infringement against Apple in Germany. A spokesman for the Regional Court in Mannheim, Joachim Bock, told Bloomberg that the suit—related to three telecommunications standards—has been rejected, while Samsung claims that the ruling relates to only one of several patents asserted against Apple. “We are disappointed that the court did not share our views regarding the infringement by Apple of this specific patent,” Samsung said in a statement. “We will wait for the written grounds of today’s judgment, and after thorough review make a decision about a possible appeal.” Apple had no specific comment on the ruling, according to the report.

Following yesterday’s report in The New York Times highlighting the sometimes hard lives of those who work in the factories where Apple’s products are made, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent out an email to all Apple employees in response. “As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain”, Cook writes in the lengthy email, which was reprinted by 9to5Mac. “Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.” The email continues for several more paragraphs, in which Cook reiterates the company’s commitment to being a leader in this area. For the full text of the email, visit the link above.

The National Hockey League has released NHL Hardest Shot, a new iPhone app designed to measure the speed of slapshots, challenging aspiring hockey pros to put their strength and power to the test. The app uses a sound and speed measurement system to track the puck and instantly measure the speed for standard 20ft and 40ft shooting distances. Players simply need to choose their distance, ensure that the target is a solid surface and place the phone off to the side between the shooting position and the target. Users can also challenge their friends and post their best results to Facebook and Twitter. The app also provides a video library including an instructional video on how to take the best slapshots and clips of some of the hardest slapshots in the history of the NHL. NHL Hardest Shot is available from the App Store for $2.

Game developer Valve has released Steam Mobile, a new iPhone app that allows users of the popular gaming service to participate in the Steam community directly from their device. The new app allows Steam users to chat with their friends on Steam, browse community groups, gaming pages and user profiles as well as reading the latest gaming news and keeping track of sales on games. Users can also view the catalog of featured, new and popular games and manage their wish list from within the app. Steam Mobile available from the App Store as a free download, but is reportedly still in closed beta requiring users to request an invitation before they can sign in to use the app. [via MacStories]