Top 20 posts of the year - Nos. 11-20

As 2009 winds down I wanted to take a look back at the 20 most popular posts here on The Apple Core of 2009. Today I'll review posts 11-20 and tomorrow I'll post the top 10.

11. Poor iPod touch battery life (originally posted October 25, 2007)

Although this story dates back to 2007, its popularity in 2009 tells an interesting story. Namely that people searched for "iPod touch battery life" on Google a lot in 2009 – where the story comes up fifth. The iPod touch's battery life was been a popular topic in 2007 when the first generation model got panned in the media (notably by Walt Mossberg) for its poor battery life. The issue spiked again in 2009 when the third generation model came out in September 2009 and people again started searching for ways to extend its battery life.

12. The impact of installing Rosetta on Snow Leopard (Spoiler: none)(October 28, 2009)

Apple removed Rosetta from the default installation of Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on June 8, 2009. Many people, including myself, panicked when they saw a new dialog box pop up when trying to run a Rosetta app (in my case, the Office 2008 installer). You need to install Rosetta" it taunted. Not wanting anything to slow down my zippy Snow Leopard installation, I was reluctant to. As it turns out, Rosetta is only about 2MB in size, it only runs when needed and has almost-zero impact on performance.

13. AT&T's $200 early upgrade fee & iPhone eligibility (June 9, 2009)

I was all excited by the iPhone 3GS announcement and rushed to place a pre-order -- only to discover that I wasn't eligible for the $199/$299 (plus two-year contract, natch) pricing that Apple advertises. Turns out that iPhone 3G customers have to wait 18 months before being eligible to upgrade to the 3GS at the advertised prices -- sometimes less if you're in a family plan. By the looks of things a lot of people were in the same boat.

14. Silent recall on MacBook Pro batteries (May 3, 2006)

Originally posted in 2006, this post comes up forth on Google when searching for "macbook pro battery recall." People probably found their way to my four year old post about a battery issue (affecting only the first two weeks of MacBook Pros produced) after search for information about Apple's controversial new sealed, non-user replaceable batteries.

15. What's on the Queen's iPod? (posted April 2, 2009)

Ah royalty, why are we so fascinated by thee? I can't really say that I am, unless of course we're talking about royal gadgets. This post was about the royal iPod given to the Queen by President Obama while on an official visit to the UK. What's more interesting is what's on Phil Schiller's iPhone. In an interview with David Pogue Schiller mentioned a few of his favorites, including Shazam, CNN, Facebook, MLB, NBA, ESPN, Eliminate, geoDefense and Best Camera.

16. Apple's Black Friday sale to include online shopping (November 23, 2009)

17. Another Apple Black Friday leak rumor - with prices! (November 23, 2009)

18. Apple's Black Friday discounts leaked (November 27, 2009)

No real surprise here, everyone uses the Internet to look for deals, especially leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This combined with Apple's legendary lack of discounting pushed these three retail posts into the Top 20.

What's that? "Real competition" in the same sentence as "iPhone?" What could be considered sacrilege to many turns out to be a fact. The Droid’s biggest advantages over the iPhone come courtesy of Google’s Android operating system, which graduated to version 2.0 (code named Eclair). Android is maturing quickly and its open platform, background apps, widgets and customization expose many of the chinks in the iPhone’s armor. When you combine Android 2.0 with the new hardware features included in the Droid handset – including its physical keyboard, removable battery, 5MP camera and expansion slot – you have a potent competitor to the iPhone.

20. iPhone firmware 2.2.1 released, unlockers beware(January 27, 2009)

When Apple released firmware 2.2.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch back in January it broke the iPhone Dev Team’s vaunted yellowsn0w unlock prompting a small panic. While Apple found time to break yellosn0w in the update it didn't address a long list of missing iPhone features (cut and paste, push notifications, tethering, MMS and A2DP.) Well, at least we have all of those features now.

Wait, where's tethering?

Stay tuned for the top 10.