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With the death of the venerable XServe blade server at the beginning of last year, Apple has essentially abandoned the market for corporate servers. If you want to run a Mac server, Apple recommends the Mac mini with Lion Server, which is only really a viable option for small businesses.

Over at MacMagazine, reader Joseph Arthur had a great idea: why not redesign the Mac Pro slightly so they are stackable?

It’s a cute idea, and I get a kick out of the visual, but two problems: the Mac Pro looks like it’ll be killed off sooner rather than later, and the Mac Pro solution leads to the same problem the Mac mini solution had, in that centers can’t fit the machines in their existing blade racks. Still, pretty ingenious.

If you thought pulling a rabbit out of your hat was cutting-edge magic, you haven’t talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook lately. Give him three months, and Cook can convert 300,000 Apple shares into almost $100 million dollars. Pretty neat trick, huh? In fact, Cook leads all Silicon Valley executives in the largest cash haul from company stock, according to just-released data.

If you’re reading us from Asia, great news: the Asian continent’s own answer to Black Friday starts tomorrow, January 6th, and as rumored. Apple’s now having a Lunar New Year Sale to celebrate, offering discounts on most of their popular products in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

The discounts are basically similar to those U.S. Apple Store customers saw in November, with discounts of between 6-8% on iPads, 10% discounts on iPods, and between 5-10% off all MacBooks.

If you’re in one of the aforementioned countries and want to start the New Year right, get hopping: this sale will only continue for 24 hours.

There’s nothing like a family fight and one may be brewing between Android creator Google and the Kindle Fire, one of the few Android-based tablets able to lay a finger on the iPad’s overwhelming success. Although unconfirmed, a report suggests the Internet giant is planning to unveil its own tablet in early 2012 that could undercut Amazon’s price advantage. It brings tears of joy to the eyes of Apple fans.

Kanye West is not known for his modesty. He once appeared on a Rolling Stone cover portraying Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. In 2004, he stormed out of the American Music Awards after not winning Best New Artist, saying “I was definitely robbed… I was the best new artist of the year.” Even President Obama has called Kanye West a “jackass.”

With all that in mind… hey guys! Guess who just declared himself the next Steve Jobs?

With billions in the bank, sometimes it is cheaper to pay a few bucks rather than spend time in court. That apparently is the logic behind a $5 million settlement announced in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against Apple. Despite little chance of a courtroom win, a Taiwan-based touchpad maker is proclaiming victory.

I’d have put my house and children on Apple suing the Chinese toy manufacturer which produces the incredibly realistic Steve Jobs action figure we reported on earlier this week. And just as expected, it’s threatening to do just that.

In Icon has reportedly received a letter from Apple’s legal team which states it must stop producing and selling the 12-inch $99 figure — which sports Steve’s iconic black turtleneck, blue jeans and white sneakers — immediately, or face legal action. Unfortunately for In Icon, it has no intention of quitting.

There are many excellent and original ways to propose to your significant other. For example, I once proposed to a girlfriend on a tethered skydive by shouting into her ear at a dangerously low 1500 feet: “Will you marry me and should I pull this ripcord?” To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more enthusiastically (some might even say hysterically) shrieked affirmation of love.

That’s one way to do it. Of course, a less dramatic (and some might argue, more romantic) way to do it, if your girlfriend is an iOS gamer, is to reach out to the developer of her favorite game and ask him to bake a wedding proposal into his app for you.

Despite a message posted to Twitter by Pod2g earlier this week, suggesting an untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S was less than a week away from public release, a new blog post detailing the iOS hacker’s process indicates the exploit could still be weeks away yet.

Pod2g has revealed that his new exploit requires a developer account to inject the necessary files to your device, and until he finds a way around this, the hack will not see a public release.

The prevailing Wall Street consensus is that Apple will report later this month iPhone sales of around 29 million handsets. But one expert is questioning that figure, suggesting official analysts could be way too conservative amid yet another historic sales period for the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant.

Look at that big ugly thing. It’s not pretty, it’s boring, and it’s not even all that protective — leaving the top and bottom ends of your iPhone exposed to the elements. But despite these insufficiencies, its manufacturers will charge you $10,000 for the thing simply because it’s made from solid gold.

Hey kids, NASA needs your help. And your iPhone.

Just how important is the iPhone to U.S. carriers? Verizon’s financial chief provided some insight Wednesday, announcing the provider sold 4.2 million Apple smartphones during the holiday fourth quarter. While the October launch of the iPhone 4S likely spurred many of those purchases, the cost is a smaller profit in exchange for hefty data contracts and a piece of the Apple halo.

A large proportion of iPhone 4S adopters have been hit by an issue on the new device that randomly mutes their audio when they make a call. Their recipient appears to pickup — or the call goes to voicemail — but they do not hear anything.

If you’re one of these users and you’re hoping for a fix in Apple’s upcoming iOS 5.1 software update, then you may be disappointed. According to developers already testing the release, it does not address this particular issue.

Logitech isn’t waiting for CES next week; instead, the gadget giant is releasing two new products today — one of which raised eyebrows here.

I love Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad 2, and I’ve had one stuck to my device since the day I bought it. It looks good, it protects my display, and it’s useful. I often wonder whether the same kind of concept could work for the iPhone, and it seems TidyTilt has an answer.

TidyTilt is like a Smart Cover for your iPhone 4 or 4S, only much smarter. Not only does it act as a kickstand for your device when you want to type, watch movies, or play games; it provides tidy storage for your earbuds, and a whole lot more.

Google has updated its popular Google Translate app for iOS today, introducing native support for the iPad. Instead of running in a small window in the center of screen, the app will now take advantage of your iPad’s large display to make text translation easier on the go.

Here’s a fun idea from Kickstarter: hip headphones with built-in housing for your iPod shuffle.

Apple is now giving refunds to customers that purchased the bizarre GameStore app that surfaced over the past weekend in the App Store. GameStore offered in-app purchases for non-existent racing games.

In an email to customers that purchased GameStore during the brief time it was on the App Store, Apple has noted that the app was made available for sale “prematurely.”

The area where the fitness tech companies congregate at CES seems to get larger and louder every year — and based on the preview emails or stuff we’ve chatted about on the phone, fitness at CES 2012 looks like it’ll be bigger than ever.

What’s this? Android news on Cult of Mac?! Who the hell cares?! Maybe you don’t, maybe you do. Point is: these are a few of the popular topics going on in the Android world today. Maybe you’d like to know what the competition is up to, or perhaps your aunt received a Kindle Fire she needs to update. Regardless of the reason, having a resource such as Cult of Android allows you to learn more about what’s going on in the ecosystem powered by the world’s leading mobile OS.

Yesterday we showed you how to conserve iCloud storage space by removing old backups from your iOS device. But what if you don’t have old backups eating up your storage, and you’re still going over your limit?

Today’s tip will show you how to manage your iCloud storage by disabling backups for selected iOS apps that you don’t necessarily need to backup with iCloud, quickly providing you with more storage for your important data.

Who rides around in an armored Cadillac and likes to take retro-filtered photos? The President of the United States, of course! That’s right, President Barack Obama is now Instagram.

As the campaign season starts to ramp up, Obama’s staff is covering all the bases. Fellow Instagram addicts can follow the president’s staff from his official account for plenty of hipster filter goodness and behind-the-scenes peeks along the campaign trail. 

Verizon has announced record-breaking results for its 2011 fourth quarter sales. The nation’s largest carrier sold 4.2 million iPhones during the holiday season, effectively doubling sales from the previous quarter.

The iPhone 4S was launched during Q4 of 2011, and holiday sales have surely helped Verizon rise to such impressive results.

It would seem that popular music streaming service Spotify is cooking something especially juicy in the voice department. Forbes is reporting that Spotify’s CEO has shown off a “hack” that involved telling the service’s iOS app to play some tunes.