Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil

“In the Studio” marches on this week with yet another entrepreneur who on the surface seems too young to be a founder/CEO, until you peel back the layers and realize that he actually has a decade’s worth of experience building web products, has built his own consulting services, has built sites that have been acquired for real sums of money, spent his nights in high school in a big city tech scene, invested his own earnings into startups (which mostly failed), and after arriving in the U.S. to attend Y Combinator, is now leading a small team into the iPhone gaming market.

I’ll keep this post brief, mainly because I’d encourage everyone to really watch this video — perhaps twice — to really get a view into how an entrepreneur like Josh Buckley thinks. Buckley, who is 20 years old, began hacking on computers a decade ago, teaching himself basic programming languages, securing consulting gigs, and eventually going on to build products that were sold. At age 15, he made a larger sale, started traveling, and started investing in some of his friends’ ventures. Though he lost most of his invested money, he made one investment which gave him a view into Y Combinator.

Buckley eventually applied to YC, founded MinoMonsters, raised a seed round, and is on his way again to something of substance, either on this particular entrepreneurial journey or the next one, or the one after that. The one refrain from this conversation that made a real impression on me was Buckley’s insistence that his success so far is tied to him constantly creating new things — to building new things, to being a “maker.”

This conversation would be of interest to students who are already hacking or interested in computer programming, even in grade/middle school, as well as people who want a view into how the new generation of software leaders approach and conceptualize their challenges and opportunities. This is one of the more inspiring talks we’ve had on “In the Studio” so far, so I’ll stop there and let you watch the video.

iOS: Private browsing isn't too difficult on a desktop computer, but keeping your web travels anonymous on an iPhone is a bit more difficult. If you want to hide your every move, Onion Browser is an app that uses Tor proxy servers to hide your activities from ISPs, other Wi-FI connections, and more. More »

Socialcam, the “Instagram for video” iPhone app that spun out of user generated video pioneer Justin.tv last year, has had a pretty crazy past week. A Hacker News post aimed at recruiting engineers for the company said that the app added four million new users over the past weekend alone — I’m hearing rumors that Socialcam’s total user count may have pushed past 10 million — and the company is part of the most hotly pursued YC classes from an investor standpoint. You’d think that Socialcam’s three-person team would be totally overwhelmed.

Well, they probably are — but they’re still apparently shipping lots of app updates. This latest one, made today, has two main tweaks that seem small but helpful. Now when users click on a video it plays right within the app’s main feed rather than sending them to a different viewing window; and videos start loading right when a user hovers over them. Essentially they’re both aimed at making the app faster to use.

When reached by phone this afternoon, Socialcam CEO Michael Siebel confirmed that his company was indeed responsible for the Hacker News post, so the four million user number is actually legit — he declined to give any more detail on Socialcam’s total user numbers, or on its funding situation. (Don’t worry, we’ll keep working on it.) But that’s because according to him, Socialcam’s main focus is not on numbers, but on making sure the users it has attracted stick around for the long term. He was quick to point out, also, that this is the third app update Socialcam has made since YC demo day on March 27. “We’re not just looking for distribution. We want the app to be better for everyone, to make sure that we take all the pain out of both making and watching videos,” Seibel said. “My goal is to make the process of taking and watching videos as easy as it is for photos.”

It’s smart for Socialcam to keep its eye on the ball, being that it is certainly not the only game in town when it comes to the suddenly very hot mobile video space. Since Instagram’s $1 billion sale to Facebook earlier this month, the hunt for a similar app for video has been especially intense — and smartphone users, the media, and of course venture capital investors are all on the trail. Viddy, which is currently at the top spot in the iTunes store, just raised a $6 million round from some super high profile investors; Mobli has also attracted some star-studded investors and users; and other apps such as Tout and Klip are in the mix as well.

It’s fun to watch from an industry perspective, but for users, this environment is especially good news. There are some real technological challenges in making sharing video as accessible as photos, so it’s good to have some earnest energy in the space to hopefully deliver a real solution to the problem.

Check out TechCrunch TV’s interview earlier this month with Socialcam CEO Michael Seibel:

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Sprint plans to offer unlimited data on the next iPhone even if it’s LTE. This would make the carrier the only one in the U.S. with the pairing. Verizon and AT&T went away from unlimited plans before the iPhone 4S launched in 2011 leaving just Sprint with both unlimited data and the iPhone.

Unlimited data plans used to be the norm. Now, in the age of the ubiquitous smartphone, most carriers have moved away from that model as their networks strain under the load of Netflix, Facebook and Spotify. But not Sprint. The third most popular carrier in the U.S. just confirmed that it will still offer unlimited data for the next iPhone.

This comes from a CNET interview where Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said, “I’m not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point.” He added, “That’s our distinctive differentiator. Frankly, [the iPhone and unlimited data] a marriage made in heaven.” Hesse is right. The two go together like John Biggs and pie.

The iPhone is a huge seller for Sprint and accounted for 44% of its new activations during its last quarter. The carrier reportedly spent big bucks getting the rights to the iPhone and it seems to be paying off. But it still needs to offer something different from the market leaders of AT&T and Verizon, and that’s unlimited data.

iOS (Jailbroken) The iPhone's automatic brightness feature kind of stinks and the brightness slider is hidden away inside the settings menu making it a pain to get to in a hurry. If you're sick of being blinded by your phone in the morning or not being able to see a thing in the sun then Swipebright is a simple toggle for jailbroken iPhones that makes brightness easy to adjust anywhere. More »

Apple’s iOS ecosystem keeps on rolling. The company said it has more than 600,000 apps in the store, up from the 550,000 number they confirmed a month ago.

On top of that the iTunes store generated $1.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year. Apple didn’t break out how much of that was devoted to songs versus apps. They also didn’t update the recent 25 billion app downloads figure they also shared last month. Just to look back at previous stats the company has shared, Apple said it has paid out more than $4 billion to developers cumulatively. Google’s store in contrast has at least 450,000 apps and it still lags in monetization (although it’s improving!)

I regularly talk to top-grossing developers too, so I have an anecdotal barometer of revenues per day. Last summer and fall, revenue for a top-grossing app hovered at around $3 million per month. Then Epic’s Infinity Blade II proved that a single iOS app could do $5 million in a month in December, the very lucrative holiday month. After surveying developers who have held the top grossing iPhone rank, I’m hearing that the slot is doing about $250,000 to $300,000 in revenue per day now, including both in-app purchase and advertising revenue.

Here’s a look back how the ecosystem has grown since the store’s launch almost four years ago in mid-2008:

Apple just released its FY2012 Q2 earnings and will host its earnings call at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern today. We will live blog this call for you below, but you can also listen in to the call here (QuickTime required).

As a reminder, here are some of the highlights from Apple’s numbers:

• quarterly revenue: $39.2 billion
• net profit: $6 billion
• iPhone sold: 35.1 million
• iPads sold: 11.8 million (up 151% from a year ago)
• Mac sold: 4 million (up 7% from last year)
• iPads sold: 7.7 million (down 15% from a year ago)

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Apple just released its second quarter financial numbers. Overall hardware sales decreased from its record previous quarter but with the notable exception of the iPods, they’re up from the same quarter a year ago. Apple sold 88% more iPhones in the quarter than it did during the same time last year.

Besides the huge year-over-year increase of iPhone sales, iPad and Mac sales increased 188% and 7%, respectively. However, the iPod didn’t fare so well: Sales are down 15% over last year’s quarter.

“We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO said in a release statement today. “The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.”

These numbers are actually down from 1Q2012 where Apple shattered nearly all its previous records. In that period Apple sold 37.04M iPhones, 15.43M iPads, and 5.2M Macs. Even the iPad sold well with 15.4M units. But thanks to Apple’s offset financial quarters, this time period included the iPhone 4S launch and holiday sales. Even still, the 2Q2012 numbers are inline with analyst’s predictions. Apple’s two biggest products, the iPhone and the iPad, saw sales down just 5.3% and 23%, respectively.

The iPod is clearly declining in popularity. The previous king of MP3s had a stellar previous quarter but that’s likely because it still makes a great holiday gift. But now, during the barren winter and early spring months, sales slipped. Apple sold 1.32M less units during its second quarter than it did last year.

Go plug in your iPhone, wait a few minutes and then take a big whiff over the headphone jack. Smell anything? Well, there are widespread reports in China that their phones smell like fruit. Seriously. Owners are stating that their Apple iPhones actually smell like apples.

As M.I.C. Gadget reports, it’s a popular topic on China’s Sina Weibo microblogging social network. Owners claim that during the charging process they can smell the sweet fragrance of pineapple, mango, peach and apple. It seems to be most prevalent around the headphone jack but others state that they can smell it around the volume controls, as well.

Apparently some of the organic solvents used in the manufacturing process could be the source. While the iPhone is charging, the internals heat up, causing some of the residue to heat up and emit the smell. One Apple China rep suggested that the smell is from the internal components and advised not to inhale too hard.

Oh, another real possibility is that China is trolling the rest of the world, and are currently sitting back, completely satisfied knowing that right now there are millions of iPhone owners innocently smelling their phones.