科技英语新闻:Apple releases top apps, music, movies of 2011

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Apple on Thursday released iTunes Rewind 2011 and App Store Rewind 2011, its annual lists of top selling music, TV shows, movies and apps for the year.

Apple picks Instagram as "iPhone App of the Year." Instagram is a free photo sharing application which enables users to confine photos into a square shape in an homage to both Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras, and share them on a variety of social networking services.

Photo editing software Snapseed is picked as "iPad App of the Year."

"Angry Birds" was the top paid iPhone and iPad app for 2011. Its spinoffs, "Angry Birds Seasons" and "Angry Birds Rio," also make to the top 10 lists.

ITunes' best-selling movie is "The Social Network" and "Doctor Who" is the best-selling season TV series. An episode of "Walking Dead" is the best-selling TV episode.

The best-selling fiction book was "The Help." "Steve Jobs," the only official biography of the late Apple co-founder, was the best- selling non-fiction book.

In iTunes Rewind 2011, British singer Adele sweeps three major music category, named for top-selling song (Rolling in the Deep), top-selling album (21) and iTunes Artist of the year for 2011.

ITunes also picked Foo Fighter's "Wasting Light" as album of the year, "Pumped up Kicks" by Foster the People as song of the year, and Nicki Minaj as its breakthrough artist of the year.

First launched as iTunes Music Store in 2003, the Apple online digital media store became the largest music seller in the United States in 2008. Last February, Apple announced that more than 10 billion songs have been sold in iTunes Store. In 2008, Apple said over 200 million TV episodes had been sold.

The Apple App Store was initially released in July 2008. According to Apple's data, more than 18 billion apps have been downloaded as of Oct. 4.