On Wednesday, word surfaced that Apple has begun sending legal take-down notices to the servers hosting services that assist users in unlawfully obtaining software from the App Store.

The news is a welcome revelation to app developers who claim to lose no shortage of revenue right along with Apple when their digital creations are stolen.

As Apple Insider reported this afternoon:

App Store piracy has been around for years, though there has not been much indication that Apple has been aggressive in shutting it down. The company has been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with jailbreak developers who look for exploits in iOS to allow them to run unauthorized code.

Although it isn’t yet clear what the outcome of Apple’s renewed efforts will be, it’s evident that Apple is viewing the start of 2012 as a fresh opportunity to take down the pirates who continue to pillage and plunder their way through the iOS App Store.

According to the data, over 1.2B apps were downloaded across iOS and Android devices alone, representing a full 60 percent increase when compared to early December.  Though a huge rise in downloads was expected as millions of consumers unwrapped their new iPads, iPhones and other mobile devices on Christmas Day, this year was by far the highest jump ever recorded by Flurry.

Most of the downloads came from the U.S. and a handful of Western countries, with China coming in at second place behind the U.S followed by the U.K, Canada and Germany to round out the top five.  China alone saw 99 million downloads, which is relatively small compared to China’s overall installed base and the fact that it’s the second largest mobile app ecosystem in the world.  Still, given the fact that Christmas isn’t widely celebrated in China, it shows just how accelerated the worldwide mobile app market is shaping up to be as we enter 2012.

Dubbed “FreeMyApps,” the new solution was designed to help developers and marketers “overcome the notorious advertising challenge of cost-effectively driving download volume and profitable revenue growth of paid apps,” according to a company press release.  The solution works by leveraging what’s called Fiksu’s “Traffic Enrichment Layer,” which enables premium apps the ability to drive traffic, increase purchase rate and heighten word of mouth awareness.

Powered by the same proprietary algorithms of Fiksu for Mobile Apps, FreeMyApps targets and optimizes the best mix of advertising traffic from ad networks and real time bidding exchanges.  Through its Traffic Enrichment Layer, FreeMyApps drives higher conversion rates and volumes of app downloads by enriching the user value through engagement after a click on a banner ad but before presenting a link to download an app from Apple’s App Store.

“FreeMyApps was incubated in Fiksu Research Labs because our clients and the app development community have been searching for a viable alternative for marketing their paid apps,” said Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu.  “With FreeMyApps, it’s a win for everyone – paid app developers can be profitable at scale without switching to a free or freemium model, free app developers can expand their reach and consumers can get paid apps for free.”

The new solution even includes benefits for consumers, as it provides the ability to access some of the most popular paid app titles for free.  Users can download and launch apps from a menu of free “sponsor apps,” which allows them to earn credits that can be redeemed for paid apps.

Fiksu has already managed to gain the attention of large-scale developers such as the makers of Skyfire, a popular mobile Web browser app for iPhone and Android.  “People who try Skyfire’s paid apps love them and tell their friends, but we are always seeking to grow even faster in cost-effective ways,” said Jeffrey Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. “We are excited to be a launch partner for FreeMyApps, to reach more users and grow revenue.”

“This business learning utility provides students with a user-adaptive business administration and management course geared to bolster their professional skills and value within the workplace,” INTERSOG announced Monday.

MBA Learning Solutions 2.0 is available now for download on the Apple App Store in the Business category.

According to the app maker, the offering serves up a complete digital MBA level textbook fully integrated with term and concept search features.

Together with study programs and practice tests the app delivers what INTERSOG hails as “a truly mobile business-minded learning solution capable of helping anyone understand and master many of the most important modern business practices.”

A single-source learning solution, MBA Learning Solutions 2.0 combines its full-text course book with interactive flashcards and comprehensive self-tests to create a completely user-controlled educational experience.

INTERSOG believes that users stand to gain a solid understanding of modern market influences and economic conditions, and how these factors affect various types of businesses today.

Last night, Apple updated iTunes to highlight the 2011 edition of iTunes Rewind, which gives the company an opportunity to shine one last moment of glory upon the best music, movies, TV shows, mobile apps, books, and more from the last twelve months.

Among the big winners according to Apple:

Apps:

• iPhone App of the Year: Instagram
• iPhone Game of the Year: Tiny Tower
• iPad App of the Year: Snapseed
• iPad Game of the Year: Dead Space for iPad

Music:

• Song of the Year: Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People
• Artist of the Year: Adele
• Album of the Year: Wasting Light by Foo Fighters

Books:

• Best Novel: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obeht
• Best Nonfiction: Boomerang by Michael Lewis

To see the full list of Apple’s spotlight honorees, click here.

The report shows that 27% of the most popular apps in Apple’s App Store for iPhone are only popular in one specific country.  Meanwhile, Nokia’s Ovi Store has the highest proportion of apps published in just one country (29.4%) while the App Store for iPad has the lowest (3.4%).

It’s interesting to note that Distimo completely ignored RIM for this report for no apparent reason.  Looking at the big picture, only a small proportion of apps are tailored to one specific country in most vendors’ apps stores, including iPhone (5.2%), iPad (3.4%), Android (4.9%) and Windows Phone (3.5%).

Closer to home, the U.S. and the U.K. feature the most locally published apps, with the U.S. having 7,158 apps that are exclusive to the iPhone App Store in the U.S.  When the App Store and Google’s Android Market are combined, the U.S., U.K., South Korea and Japan are about equal in terms of locally available apps.  Despite the high number of locally published apps in the App Store in the U.S., the proportion of local apps is relatively low, according to the report, with only 22% of  the 100 most popular iPhone apps and 19% of 100 most popular iPad apps being U.S.-only.

As always, there’s much more data available in the report itself, which is available for download here.

And the folks at Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news provider, know it.

Catering to the new needs of Wall Street titans, on Monday Blooomberg announced its new Bloomberg Radio+ App for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.

Available now in the App Store, Bloomberg says this is the first radio app where listeners can view real-time charts, get the latest market information and news, and access guest bios — all while listening to the most preeminent minds in business and finance.

“We look forward to bringing Manhattan’s number one radio station to a global audience,” said Oke Okaro, general manager and global head of Bloomberg mobile. “Now people around the world will have 24/7 access to Bloomberg Radio’s market-moving news and analysis on their terms.”

The Bloomberg Radio+ app gives listeners the flexibility to hear live breaking financial and business news 24-hours per day as well as download a vast on-demand library of shows and interviews they can listen to at their convenience. For example, rather than having to wait for the regularly scheduled market updates at the 20 minute and 50 minute marks, people can now get that information on demand, download it onto their device, and listen to it offline where and when they want.

Best of all, the Bloomberg Radio+ App is available for free.

And the effort is already paying off.

According to a press release issued Monday by the FTC, “marketers who advertised that their smartphone applications could treat acne have agreed to stop making baseless claims in order to settle FTC charges.”

The offending mobile applications were sold in Apple’s iTunes Store and Google’s Android Marketplace.

“The settlements in two separate cases would bar the marketers from making certain health-related claims without scientific evidence,” the release states.

The cases involving mobile apps “AcneApp” and “Acne Pwner” are the first the FTC has brought targeting health claims in the mobile application marketplace.

The FTC alleged that the mobile apps were advertised to work in the same way: both claimed to be able to treat acne with colored lights emitted from smartphones or mobile devices. Consumers were advised to hold the display screen next to the area of skin to be treated for few minutes daily while the app was activated.

According to the FTC complaint, there were approximately 3,300 downloads of AcnePwner, which was offered for 99 cents in the Android Marketplace. Ads for Acne Pwner stated, “Kill ACNE with this simple, yet powerful tool!” The marketers of AcneApp claimed, “This app was developed by a dermatologist. A study published by the British Journal of Dermatology showed blue and red light treatments eliminated p-acne bacteria (a major cause of acne) and reduces skin blemishes by 76%.” There were approximately 11,600 downloads of AcneApp from the iTunes store, where it was sold for $1.99.

The settlement orders would require Koby Brown and Gregory W. Pearson, doing business as DermApps, to pay $14,294, and Andrew N. Finkle, doing business as Acne Pwner, to pay $1,700.

The research firm rates the amount of times a single app was downloaded on average and found that, on Nokia’s Ovi Store, the same app was downloaded 160% more times than on Apple’s App Store.  Apple has nearly 10 times the amount of apps that the Ovi Store currently has, however, and it appears that the discovery issue that’s plagued the App Store as it’s grown larger and larger continues to hurt developers eager for downloads.

A lack of competition is driving developers to smaller App platforms as well and, in the case of Nokia’s platform, they’re seeing much higher download ratios as a result.  In fact, both the Windows Phone Marketplace and Blackberry’s App World offer significantly higher download rates than Apple’s, at 80% and 43% respectively.  Granted, these platforms would be dealing with the same low numbers if they possessed as many apps as Apple, so staying relatively small and independent is the winning combination at the moment.

Citi ThankYou members can opt to shop and redeem ThankYou Points and pick up products within minutes at any Best Buy store, or have products shipped anywhere in the continental U.S. Citi ThankYou members can download the app for free from the App Store or Android Market.

“We continue to evolve the ThankYou experience to deliver immediate value that is meaningful to members’ increasingly mobile lifestyles. This new app is a first in the marketplace and delivers a more flexible and convenient way to redeem points on the go — at Best Buy stores or virtually from anywhere,” says Ralph Andretta, executive vice president of Loyalty and New Products at Citi.

According to a press release issued by Citi, here’s how the Citi ThankYou Rewards App works:

• After downloading the app from the Apple App Store or Android Market, Citi ThankYou members will be prompted to sign in using their user name and password.
• Once logged in, members can search and browse the ThankYou Rewards catalog, which features a broad selection of Best Buy products, on their iPhone, iPod touch or Android device.
• Members can use the app to redeem rewards at their Best Buy store or remotely, either by scanning barcodes on product packaging at the store, typing in the UPC code or searching by product name.
• The products can be picked up at their local Best Buy within minutes, or shipped anywhere in the continental U.S.

“With Best Buy’s experience in the mobile space, we’re excited to collaborate with Citi on bringing the ThankYou Rewards App to life,” adds Michele Azar, vice president of Emerging Digital Platforms at Best Buy. “Expanding upon our extensive network of stores and knowledgeable Blue Shirt employees, this app is yet another convenient way for our customers to connect with the right technology to fit their lifestyle.”