Beats Music -- the mobile-first, curation-heavy, sort of social, subscription-based music listening service -- is expected to make its big debut in about a week. But before the official launch, GigOm surveyed the site. “Perhaps the biggest surprise … is that the service doesn’t seem to offer any kind of Pandora-like radio stream,” it writes. Offering their own playlists, Ellen DeGeneres and Target will help promote the launch. 

Over the past year, overall app usage is up 115%, according to new estimates from Flurry Analytics. “In fact, each and every app category [Flurry] measures posted growth in 2013, including games, fitness and news apps, some of which were feared to be reaching their peaks,” BGR reports. Social and messaging apps like Snapchat and WhatsApp are mostly responsible for the impressive growth, according to Flurry. 

Flipboard thinks it can surpass 150 million users, this year, due in large part, to better discovery and search tools. The personalized magazine app had 100 million uses in December of last year, when it raised $100 million at a valuation of about $800 million. As Flipboard found Mike McCue tells The Guardian, however, many challenges face the company going forward. 

Thanks in large part to mobile mania, PC shipments during the fourth quarter were down 5.6% year-over-year, according to fresh estimates from market research firm IDC. “Much like last year, PC shipments continued to decline during the all-important holiday sales quarter,” WebProNews writes. Total PC shipments have now declined for seven consecutive quarters, according to IDC. 

How much did Yahoo shell out for Aviate? The cost of the startup -- which provides contextually relevant information on Android homescreens -- was not revealed when the deal was announced, earlier this week. Now, however, one source is telling TechCrunch that the deal was done for $80 million, while another puts the price at $20 million. That latter figure “seems more realistic given the amount that Aviate has raised,” TechCrunch reasons.  

Benefiting from Blackberry’s decline and the post-PC era, Apple’s corporate business is reportedly thriving. “The popularity of the iPhone and iPad among employees is prompting corporate tech managers to rewrite policies and change traditional buying patterns,” The Wall Street Journal report. “The iPhone has replaced the BlackBerry as the mobile phone of choice, as the iPad assumes tasks once reserved for PCs.” 

Snapchat is finally apologizing for leaking some 4.6 million phone numbers and usernames on New Year’s Day. The mea culpa accompanied a security fix, which lets user opt out of the app’s “Find Friends” feature, was understood to be at the heart of the leak. “In a blog post, the company apologized for the first time, and re-emphasized that the leak resulted from the abuse of its API, and not from its servers being hacked,” The Verge reports. 

In 2013, App Store sales surpassed $10 billion, according to figures released by Apple on Tuesday. In December alone, sales topped $1 billion thanks to App Store customers downloading nearly three billion apps, MacRumors notes. “The lineup of apps for the holiday season was astonishing,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. 

Microsoft has reportedly acquired customer service SaaS provider Parature for $100 million. “The Parature acquisition gives Microsoft Dynamics, its CRM platform, a world-class self-service knowledge base to connect with customers, such as gamers, across multiple channels, including email, the Web, chat or social media,” according to TechCrunch. 

In its effort to promote "Inside Llewyn Davis," did CBS Films break the law by running an ad in The New York Times, featuring an edited tweet by A.O. Scott? “The inclusion of Twitter, which has long asserted that its users have rights over the content they broadcast on the service, appears to change the equation,” ReadWrite suggests. “CBS Films' use of the partial tweet—if, as it seems, it came without Scott's full permission, seems to be a straightforward violation of Twitter's rules about the use of tweets in ads.”