May 10

-As measured by marketing and advertising group WPP in its annual BrandZ study of global brands, Apple easily topped the list of most valuable brands for the first time. Apple checks in with a brand value of over $153 billion, up 84% over last year and well ahead of second-place Google, which had topped the survey for the previous four years, at $111 billion.

-As noted by All Things Digital reports, Conde Nast has followed through on last week's claims that the publisher would begin offering subscriptions to its stable of magazines via the iPad App Store using Apple's in app subscription mechanism. As previously reported, The New Yorker is the first title to debut with subscriptions, but another seven titles should be rolling out soon.

-Microsoft has released a new toolkit to help iOS developers write applications for Apple’s mobile platform that also play nice with cloud Windows, also known as Windows Azure. The Windows maker says the toolkit is available for its own Windows Phone platform as well, adding that a version for Android is due next month. The iOS tookit facilitates the creation of both iPhone and iPad apps developed using Objective-C and XCode. Why bother? Microsoft explains they want to “make it easier to target Windows Azure by offering native libraries for non-Microsoft platforms”.

-The highest performance remote access app bringing your entire computer to your iPhone or iPod touch, featuring full video and audio support! See your desktop, use your regular web browser with Flash and all of your bookmarks, watch movies, and access any application or file on your computer. This version is optimized for iPhone and iPod touch. A dedicated iPad version is also available.