FIPLAB Ltd, the graduate start-up behind the leading iPhone app for the Baclays Cycle Hire Scheme announced today that its London Cycle: Maps & Routes application has surpassed 80,000 user downloads in less than 4 weeks since its launch on the iTunes AppStore.

The app, which has been a hit success from day one, has received numerous write ups on leading publications such as the Evening Standard and has been ranked on iTunes as the Number 1 Free Travel application. FIPLAB state that the application’s continued success is down to strong word of mouth by its user community, who are passionate about providing them with valuable feedback, allowing them to work towards their goal of creating the perfect companion tool for the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme.

What’s interesting is that the application is not just being used by cycle hire members, but also regular cyclists who are using the app due to the cycle-safe routes it provides. The routes allow cyclists to avoid busy roads and minimises the number of right-hand turns required to reach a destination.

After a string of updates, the company is now planning to further expand its userbase by porting their application to the BlackBerry and Android mobile platforms.

Apple’s iTunes News is back with another helpful reminder, this time on the two different types of sharing that now exist in iTunes 9 — share libraries and Home Sharing.

Sharing libraries via streaming:

You can enable it on the Sharing tab in the Preferences panel, which will allow your computer to look for the libraries others are sharing and let you choose whether to share your whole library or just selected items and playlists. When Sharing is turned on, shared libraries on your local network appear in the Shared section of the iTunes window’s left-hand column. You can play the content that appears there as if it were on your own computer.

Home Sharing:

lets the users of up to five computers on a home network copy over music or any other item they’d like to have in their own library. Then they can then enjoy it even if your computer is no longer on the network, and they can sync it to their own devices. To turn it on, use Turn On Home Sharing in the Advanced menu on each of the computers, and use the same active iTunes account to activate each one. Copying is then a simple matter of dragging from a shared library and dropping into your own.

I’ve enabled Home Sharing but I tend to just stream from shared libraries. It just feels quicker to me when I’m looking for something. Which do you use and why?

Apple has released iTunes 9.0.3, and it is now available via Software Update (98.1MB).

iTunes 9.0.3 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
• Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
• Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
• Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.

A report filed by a tipster claiming access to iTunes 9 says that it is “possible” the next version of Apple’s media player will sport both DVD import and playback as well as Facebook integration, allowing users to advertise songs and playlists with their friends.

The report and screenshots were published by the Boy Genius Report, which earlier in the month wrote that iTunes 9 is expected to allow organization of iPhone apps and iPod games and indicated some sort of social media integration was in the cards.

The latest report includes screen shots that depict a Facebook category in the iTunes Source list, allowing users to advertise new song titles and playlists in their Facebook profile. Also included is a screen shot of how advertised tracks would appear on Facebook.

BGR also presents a screen shot of iTunes 9 that suggests the capability to sync music, video, podcast, and photo content to third party device, a Samsung YH-J70xx MP3 player. Apple has previously only signaled a disinterest in supporting sync with third party devices, actively halting the Palm Pre’s attempts to identify itself as an iPod.

More interesting are the depiction of buttons in the lower right that allow for DVD

playback and import, suggesting that iTunes could do for DVDs what it got started doing for CDs. Were Apple to negotiate the right to rip DVDs, it would radically change the home movie industry in ways the industry has not demonstrated any interest in exploring. However, the addition of a “DVD Playback” button suggests that the screen shots are more likely to be fakes, as iTunes already has a playback button: “play.”

The studios have worked hard to thwart any commercial attempts to enable users to rip their own DVDs, recently filing an injunction against RealNetwork’s DVD Ripper software and even opposing a home theater installer from allowing users to rip their own DVDs for digital playback, despite the system not even producing an easy to distribute copy.

At Macworld Expo 2008, Apple announced having worked out a compromise with Twentieth Century Fox called Digital Copy for iTunes, which puts a mobile version of the movie on the DVD for use with iPods, the iPhone, Apple TV, and other media devices. Many new DVDs now include a Digital Copy of the movie, which doesn’t require any media ripping steps (transcoding and compression); instead, it simply initiates an iTunes download using a code included with the DVD.