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Your iPad or iPhone sitting idle may be costing you money. That’s the message from a class-action lawsuit charging AT&T with overcharging Apple customers up to 300 percent.

Ten years ago today, on May 19th, 2001, Apple opened the first Apple retail store at Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. A decade later, there are 323 Apple Stores around the world, with 85 outside of the United States, servicing over two hundred and twenty five million customers per year.

To celebrate the Apple Store’s 10th, we decided to throw together a gallery of some of the most visually striking, noteworthy and downright weird Apple retail stores around the world.

That new MacBook Pro of yours, may be more Apple than originally thought. Although Intel was credited with the Thunderbolt trademark on early 2011 Apple laptops, it now appears that Apple may have beaten them to the bunch and snuck in their own trademark application a year ahead of time. Is this cricket?

Despite Google’s position as one of the biggest advertising companies on earth, if you’re a company looking to promote your product, buying ads for an Android device is a pretty dicy proposition when you could buy them on an iOS device instead.

With all the deals getting inked and all the right hires in place, Apple is increasingly ready to jump iTunes into the cloud… possibly as early as next month’s WWDC. But how exactly will it work?

Oh, Research In Motion! Can you for one moment stop making your would-be iPad killer suck even harder than it already does?

Panned critically at debut, RIM recently had to recall over a thousand half-baked units. Now reports indicate that a recent patch has made PlayBook performance even worse than it was before.

Apple’s plans to launch a super-speedy LTE-enabled ‘4G’ iPhone later this year have reportedly been scuppered by a delay in manufacturing the chips, however, when the device does launch in 2012, it’s heading to China Mobile.

As this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference approaches, it seems Apple’s plan to bring us a magical cloud filled with a never-ending collection of music called ‘iCloud’ is getting its final touches. Sources say a licensing deal with music label EMI is now in place, but what about the other labels?

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for since the iPad first launched in April 2010. It’s the reason we all stood in line for a day to get our hands on one. And it’s the reason why the iPad has been such an overwhelming success all over the world. Yes, I’m talking about Playboy magazine… which is now available on your tablet.

According to a report on local television station KHOU Channel 11 you just might get more than you bargained for after your next trip to a local Apple Store in Houston, Texas. According to authorities in Houston there have been at least six Apple customers in Houston who have been followed home and robbed at gunpoint.

The smooth little black pebble above from XtremeMac is a new combo charging/bluetooth-streaming option called the InCharge Home BT ($80). Pretty simple concept: Plug it into a wall outlet, then hook it up via the 3.5 mm jack to any speaker system and bango, you’ve given the system Bluetooth streaming capability, which means you can stream music to your speakers from any iDevice or Mac; then use the USB port to charge stuff (comes with a USB t0 30-pin connector and a 3.5 mm jack cable). There’s also an auto version called, naturally, the InCharge Auto BT ($80) that XtremeMac says allows hands-free calling, so we’re assuming it’s equipped with a microphone.

Mophie’s new Juice Pack Plus for the iPhone 4 (both versions) is just one millimeter thicker than Mophie’s flagship Juice Pack Air — but stuffs 25 percent more battery into that sliver. The $100 Plus is the most massive battery ever produced by Mophie and comes with all the fancy frippery of it’s lighter brother (rubberized casing, LED status indicator, standby switch and what Mophie calls an “Acoustic Sound Enhancement,” which we weren’t sure actually did anything in our test of the 3GS version of the Air).

Liking the purple? Better get a jump on ordering; only 3000 of those were made. If you miss out, there’s still cyan, yellow, magenta or good ‘ol black-on-black to pick from.

Can a $99 second-gen Apple TV operate under heavy load as a web server? With the death of the venerable XServ line, one hosting company is going to try to find out.

San Francisco-based Cult of Mac staff and any others of our far-flug correspondent crew as can get here look forward to meeting readers and WWDC attendees at a cocktail reception on Thursday, June 9 from 6pm – 9pm during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference.

Think recent reports that Mac malware is a very real threat are just another example of security researchers crying wolf? Think again.

An AppleCare support representative says that not only are call centers being inundated with reports about the MacDefender malware, but that Apple employees who help customers remove it from their computer can be fired.

Do you get feverish and sweaty when you even think of a new Apple product? You might start experiencing bleeding palms and other stigmata next, according to a new study. The exact same part of your brain is lighting up when you think about Apple products as when you have a religious experience.

The Smart Cover is a beautiful invention, but pour a couple of beers and accidentally extinguish a couple of cigarettes on one, and it’s clear that some Smart Covers are better than others. So which one should you buy?

It is increasingly looking like the huge event Apple has in store for May 22nd isn’t a new product launch, but instead the unveiling of what is being christened Apple Store 2.0… an all new and improved retail experience which could also debut NFC-based payments, and possibly a surprise from Square.

Lodsys seems to be hell-bent on ruining things not just for application developers but for Apple as well, and it seems owing to its new-found skill in patent trolling for the odd buck, the App Store’s approval process for in-app purchases has now been frozen.

Tablets are the new must-have device for the cubicle crowd. Trouble is, once that shiny iPad is in their hands, most suits treat tablets like oversized smartphones.

A new job listing on Apple’s website reveals the company is in search of a media engine guru who may help the company kickstart its cloud-based media streaming service dubbed iCloud.

Sit-ins are so twentieth-century. Protesters Wednesday ‘planked’ outside a Foxconn shareholders meeting in objection to the Apple manufacturer’s long history of worker suicides.

Faced with the ongoing PR crisis of suicides and alleged human rights violations of its Chinese contractors, it’s looking increasingly like Apple might shift a sizable portion of their iPad production to Brazil. To prepare, Brazil’s president lowered taxes on producing and purchasing tablets in the South American country.

Despite talk of a coming onslaught of Android alternatives, almost all consumer tablet conversations begin and end with Apple’s iPad.

One of the best things about being a student – apart from all the parties, the freedom, and more free time that you know what to do with – is Apple’s back to school promotions, which typically see the company offer a free or discounted iOS device to students buying a Mac. Those waiting to get a free iPod touch before they purchase their next MacBook may not have to wait much longer, as this year’s promotion could be just around the corner.