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There are a couple of solutions on the market that combine simple hardware with an iOS app to take control of your entertainment system, but Peel is probably the coolest and most easy to use solution that we’ve played with. Peel invisibly controls your entire entertainment system — TV, cable box, Blu-ray player, AV receiver, Apple TV, and more — without the extra hassles of plugging stuff into your phone and dealing with network passwords. Normally the Peel system retails for $99, but for the next 3 days you can pick one up from Fab.com for only $45.

Tim Cook was outraged by a recent report from The New York Times that provided a detailed look at the poor working conditions for Chinese factory workers assembling our Apple gadgets. It seems he’s not the only one. The BSR, a leader in corporate responsibility which works with Apple to develop sustainable business strategies, has labeled the report “inaccurate” and “misleading,” and has requested that it is corrected by the NYT.

Meet the HP Envy 15, a laptop that Engadget says “unapologetically copies the MacBook Pro” but “stumbles in several critical areas” including being heavier than the MacBook Pro and having a worse display, touchpad (pictured), keyboard and battery life.

Completely shameless, no? It’s the tech equivalent of The Third Man’s Harry Lime selling counterfeit penicillin on the post-war Viennese black market. Accept no substitutions.

[via Reddit]

Insult, meet injury. Microsoft has just inadvertently ended up buying 1,400 iPads to schools in Madison, Wisconsin. Bet they wish they were Windows 8 tablets instead.

The Flaming Lips are huge Apple fans. Heck, they covered The Beatles’ famous song “Revolution” in tribute to Steve Jobs. But their latest track takes it a step further. Frontman Wayne Coyne roped in Siri to lay down some vocals on “Now I Understand” — a “sound construction” piece available for one week only.

ADR Studios is the Italian design company behind the iPhone SJ, a sultry concept design for the iPhone 5 featuring an edge-to-edge capacitive touchscreen, 10 megapixel camera, A6 processor, and a polycarbonate body that’s about as light as you can imagine.

It’s a design that’s not realistically going to happen, but we’ve been a little obsessed with it for the last month or so. We feel similarly about ADR’s new iWatch2 concept: Apple’s never going to make a device that was so exclusively and unapologetically a wristwatch, but if they did, man, I wish it would look like this.

For fans of vintage Macintosh computers and truly rare finds, a very unusual item has just surfaced in the wild: a 128k Macintosh prototype that used a 5.25” “Twiggy” floppy disk mechanism, the same kind Apple used with the first generation Lisa workstation.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx6X4ZZFRA

QuasiDisk, a new file manager for the iPhone, has snuck into the App Store with a hidden talent that’s sure to get it pulled pretty swiftly. The $1.99 app doesn’t just provide a quick and simple way to transfer documents between your devices, but also the ability to tether your iPhone’s data connection with other devices via proxy.

There’s been a lot of ohhing and ahhing about Cobook in the last few days, but spend just a few minutes playing with it and you’re likely to be ohhing and ahhing too. I know I am.

Becoming an Apple engineer could well be one of the most exciting careers currently available in the technology industry, but don’t expect to working on the iPhone 5 during your first week. It seems the Cupertino company is so obsessed with secrecy that new employees are made to work on “fake” devices for months, until they can be trusted not to leak them.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 – The final day of Macworld / iWorld was my fifth day away from my wife, daughter and son, and despite spending time around technology that I’m passionate about and in a city that is as awesome as advertised, I was a little homesick.

That’s why when I came across a pod that demonstrated an app that may very well help me in the future when I am spending days away from my family, I was all ears. Babiis is the missing piece in my “travel puzzle” going forward.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — As the App Store approaches its fourth birthday this July, some early apps are getting quite mature. With each update, more and more features get added.

Take for example a trio of apps from Abvio for running, walking and cycling. The company was previewing version 7 of their apps here at the show, and they have become very full-featured indeed.

SAN FRANICSCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 — Before the 2012 edition of the expo wrapped yesterday, I had the opportunity to take one last pass on the exhibit hall floor to check out what the Saturday crowd was showing interest in. There was one product that grabbed my interest as a writer, especially considering how much I use my iPad for creating articles.

I’m not the best typist — not by a long shot — and I’ve used a keyboard for my iPad for longer posts over the past year. Whether it was a keyboard that was part of a case or my trusty Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, I had one with me at all times. That’s where the iKeyboard comes in.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Here is some video of the big drum circle that wrapped up Macworld. Such a great way to end a conference!

Macworld is done, but we’ll have the remainder of our show posts tomorrow.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 — The exhibit hall was hopping today, with plenty of Apple enthusiasts checking out the various booths and panel discussions throughout the day.

Today’s crowd — not surprisingly — was the most diverse of the three-day event due to the “weekend factor”, and among the crowd were a lot of first-time attendees who were pretty happy with what they saw.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Watershed is a company based in North Carolina that makes a variety of waterproof bags, including a range of military backpacks.

It has an iPad tote bag called the Grid Tablet that is used by none other than the Navy Seals.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / iWORLD 2012 — Gregory Wyatt is a fast-talking coroner with a touch of gallows humor and a soft spot for cases involving kids. Wyatt is also the only “official” Mac user out of about 10,000 state workers. As the coroner for Sacramento County, Wyatt heads up a staff of 34 who investigate about 8,000 deaths a year and perform 1,000 autopsies.

“I’m also my own Mac support guy. The only reason I can do that is because they work,” Wyatt said during a talk titled “Apple in Life & Death: The REAL CSI.” Outgoing and confident, he joked he was “not used to speaking to people who speak back.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Here’s a story we’re hearing a lot at MacWorld: the business world is finally starting to embrace the consumerization of IT.

Take Code 42 Software, which has seen a lot of growth from its enterprise customers recently. According to Code 42, corporations have given up fighting employees who bring their Mac to work, and are now supporting them instead.

“Companies are realizing they can’t fight the tide anymore,” said Mike Evangelist, chief marketing officer. “People like their Macs better and they’re taking them to work. Companies are reacting to that.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — Rain Design’s new one-piece MacBook stand is made in the same factory that makes Apple’s unibody Macs, says the company.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 — One of the Macworld Best in Show winners that caught my attention during the past few days is an audio solution by Australia-based Dev-Audio. The Microcone features a revolutionary technology that innovates the way multiple tracks are produced.

The Microcone is an incredibly intelligent microphone that is unbelievably simple to use and can help anyone manage group conversations. While it’s not going to be something everyone can use, there are some practical applications beyond traditional meetings that are worth looking at.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / IWORLD 2012 — I’ve been looking for a docking station for my 11-inch MacBook Air ever since I picked it up a few months back. Not only has there not been anything that has caught my eye, but there haven’t been many available to even look at.

But there’s a Kickstarter-backed docking station that is on display here at Macworld/iWorld that is on my radar: LandingZone.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/IWORLD 2012 — There seems to be more beautiful models here at Macworld than ever. Models are a great asset for companies. Especially the newer companies. I spoke to a few girls this afternoon to get some insight into their job.

This is what they told me…

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Should The iPhone Allow You To Easily Swap In And Out Batteries? A lot of Android phones let you swap in and out batteries if you’re low on power, but Apple’s never done so. Is this just another example of Apple hardware oppression, or do they have a good reason?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Yahoo has decided to do some pre-Spring cleaning and has announced they will no longer be supporting their lesser used apps. This may make some of you Yahoo app addicts sad, but for the rest of us, I’m sure we won’t mind. Yahoo has stated that as the mobile space moves at an insane rate, they too must keep up with what users want and are looking for in today’s market. That’s why they have decided to cease support of the following apps in order to make room for the future:

ATTENTION all devs, designers, geeks, engineer-newbies, iLovers, creatives, and dreamers who want to learn the mastery of iPhone app design from the beginning – we have a special offer that will BLOW you away!

This iPhone app design course not only comes with a complete video tutorial overview of how to design your first iOS app, but also comes equipped with 40MB of pixel-perfect photoshop templates to accelerate you along the way.