The Bad Robot Interactive unit chose not to put out another cheesy movie promo app throwaway that is clever for all of ten seconds. Instead, the company's Action Movie FX app has been a presence scoring high on the App Store's Entertainment chart for about a month now. No Spock. No Kirk. And thank God (or the "Eighth Dynamic," as Scientology might have it) -- no Tom Cruise.

The dirty little secret of iTunes is that it really is not an optimal interface. In a shop with half a million items, there has to be a better way to surface the most relevant and valuable content than walls of icons.

With many media brands working on a range of apps and mobile sites, they need to come to the ad market with a reliable number that also reflects the true reach they can offer a marketer. Not surprisingly, one of the industry standards for verifying the measurement of analog and Web media has stepped into the new mobile frontier.

According to the invite sent out for its January 19 event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Apple will do something regarding education. "Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple," says the invite, reproduced on The Loop site.

The Economist yesterday launched a nifty little number at Electionism.com. This site contains the latest election coverage from both 'The Economist' and CQ Roll Call. The Web app aggregates links its journalists like and a roll-up of relevant Twitter feeds from both the candidates and related media. All this in HTML5 on the Web that lives outside Amazon, Apple or Android app stores.

Despite all of the hype and hoopla over consumer electronics this past holiday, the NPD Group reports that for the five weeks ending Nov. 2, 2011, sales in the category declined 5.9% from the same period in 2010, which itself was down 6.2%. The consistent losses in consumer interest seemed to revolve around the gadgets that smartphones are challenging.

In a new report, ABI Research contends that by 2016 30% of pay-TV advertising ($22 billion) will shift to newer viewing formats, including VOD, tablets and smartphones. The change will fuel a wholly new ecosystem of ad technology and services for cross-platform advertising, the company argues.

The company behind Apple's own Web site and mobile store as well as many other m-commerce sites and apps (Target, AllRecipes, etc.) has been acquired by Deloitte Consulting LLP. Seems like a curious early-out for a hot company. Selling out to "the man" so soon, fellows? Which prompted Ubermind itself to admit on its blog announcing the buyout,"We get that this raises a whole lot of questions."

The long wait for local digital TV broadcasts coming straight to smartphones may be near an end. Almost. MetroPCS is partnering with the MCV (Mobile Content Venture) consortium of broadcasters to bring their Dyle Mobile TV product to a special Samsung phone later this year. The technology lets a smartphone receive digital TV signals from local broadcasters onto the handset via an embedded receiver.

Unlike some early Fire providers who either tried to replicate the iPad experience on the smaller screen or opted for the mobile Web version of their sites, USA Today actually has worked on a form factor-specific version. In some ways the Kindle Fire app offers more efficient drilling into the deep content and sub-sections of the USA today digital media pool than does the current version of the iPad app.