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The iPad is rocking the corporate world. So much so, one analyst describes pent-up demand for tablets in the boardroom as a “corporate explosion.” Apple is the main beneficiary, with more than eight out of 10 tablets used by business bearing the Cupertino, Calif. firm’s logo.

What’s more, interest by corporations in tablets is set to double in the first quarter of 2011, according to a November IT buying survey by ChangeWave Research. The survey found 7 percent of corporations now use tablets, but 14 percent say they will use tablets in the next quarter. As for the iPad, the numbers held good news for Apple versus competitors.

Around this time every year we ask you, our lovely Cult readers, to tell us which new OS X desktop applications have caught your eye over the last 12 months.

Last year’s winners (by a hair) were Google Chrome and OmmWriter.

What do we mean by “new”? Ideally, we mean brand new applications that were launched for the first time this year. But we’re prepared to be flexible, so “new” can also mean major updates to existing apps. And don’t forget, we’re talking OS X desktop apps here, not iOS apps.

A few suggestions to get you started: Scrivener 2, Postbox, Office 2011, iLife 11, iTunes 10, Reeder, Kiwi, Transmit 4, Lightroom 3… the list is long.

The comments box is yours. Tell us what new software you loved most in 2010. The application with the most mentions is declared the winner, and will be featured in a follow-up post next week.

Ever wondered what Apple hardware and software pro bloggers use?

Peter Sciretta is a professional blogger/journalist specializing in film and entertainment. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Slashfilm.com (stylized as /Film), which has won numerous awards and recognition from the mainstream media. Last year, Total Film named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Movies.”

Sciretta began his career on a Windows PC, but soon thereafter saw the value of switching to the Mac. “Nowadays everything I have in my home office is Apple-based,” he says.

In this post, adapted from a recent interview, Sciretta reveals what hardware, software, and mobile apps he can’t live without — both personally and professionally.

Although Cupertino never tips its hand ahead of time, past experience indicates you can set your watch (at least by the month) for their product refreshes, so no shock here: it’s now being reported that Apple will launch new MacBook Pros in the first half of 2011, which probably equates to a April 2011 timescale, along with new iMacs, which were last updated back in January.

Apple has just issued a press release saying that the Mac App Store will open for downloads on January 6 2011.

“The Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.”

I have a feeling some developers aren’t going to get much rest over the Christmas break this year…

Wyse has just released a free version of PocketCloud for iOS, giving you wireless access to remote computers from your iPad or iPhone.

The free version carries adverts, and lacks some features (video streaming and external monitor support) that you’ll find in the paid version.

British iPhone owners who enjoy foul-mouthed comedy will be delighted to learn that there’s a new, official Malcolm Tucker iPhone app to download for a mere four fine English pounds.

Tucker is the brutal, thuggish political spin doctor character in UK comedy show The Thick Of It. His adventures in swearing are legendary.

“Foul-mouthed” hardly does him justice, to be honest. If there’s a %^&@ way he can think of to @*(! your day and shove your @*($@$@% through your @£[/*$ until you’re bleeding £!*++ out of your !&@*, Tucker will say so.

And now he’s on your iPhone – or you’re on his, so to speak. The Missing Phone app pretends to be Tucker’s phone, and you’ve just found it. I’ll leave you to guess which four-letter passcode might unlock it, and discover the top-secret emails and text messages stored within.

An update for iTunes has just hit Software Update, and although version 10.1.1 includes no new features, it does address a couple of issues and that may cause problems with syncing and quitting unexpectedly.

The release notes for 10.1.1 list the changes:

• Addresses an issue where some music videos may not play on Macs equipped with NVIDIA GeForce 9400 or 9600 graphics.
• Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly quit when deleting a playlist that has the iTunes Sidebar showing.
• Fixes a problem where iTunes may unexpectedly quit when connecting an iPod to a Mac equipped with a PowerPC processor.
• Addresses an issue where some music videos may not sync to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad.

Download the latest release via Software Update on your Mac, or from Apple’s website.

It’s no secret that Apple enjoys an unprecedented lead in the touch tablet market. The last major accounting put Apple at an incredible 95% market share.

Until the iPad’s first real competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which shipped late in the year, Apple pretty much had 2010 all to itself. Next year will be different.

The generally expected outcome for the market is that the coming flood of tablets will usher in a new range of choice for tablet buyers, and Apple will be forced to share the market with competitors who offer pretty much the same functionality at a lower price, or more and better features at pretty much the same price.

The market should settle, with Apple’s share declining to a low, two-digit number with the “open” and cheaper alternatives, especially Google Android devices, taking the lion’s share.

I don’t think that’s going to happen. I believe Apple will remain the dominant player indefinitely. Apple’s incredible lead, plus unexpected craziness in the rest of the market will favor Apple in the mind of consumers.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

Apple has released an updated version of iBooks, version 1.2, introduces PDF printing and Collections. Collections allow you to organize your books and PDFs.

The app is now able to provide better graphics support for children’s books and there is even an option that will allow you to display more words per page for devices with smaller screens like the iPhone and iPod touch.

It’s available now, for iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad via updates in the iTunes App Store app or grab a copy here.

Check out the iPhone 4 screen shots after the jump.

Don’t have an AppleTV, or even a TV, but interested in beaming some of your iPhone’s videos to that inviting 27-inch iMac display? TUAW’s always ingenious Erica Sadun has put together a tricky new piece of software that fools your iPhone or iPod Touch into thinking its an AppleTV.

There are some great iPad apps out there (Evernote is one of my personal favorites). The tablet form factor and the touch screen make for some incredible mobile computing experiences.

But – as Poison said – every rose has its thorn. For every Star Walk, there is a box of virtual chocolates. For every Marvel Reader there is an iFart.

One would think that app developers would always strive for excellence and innovation in their work. Sadly, this is not always the case. One would further think that market forces, evolutionary pressures and/or iTunes executives would remove all terrible apps from the Apple App store. This, also sadly, is not the case.

So for fans of terrible iPad Apps and developers looking to cash in on low hanging fruit (pardon the pun), here are 10 tips for creating a terrible iPad App.

The iPad, and other tablet computers have more than legs, they have teeth. Or, so says a Wall Street analyst with charts showing cannibalization of notebook PCs at a growing rate. With nearly 55 million tablet expected to ship next year, the new platform will consume 35 percent of notebooks — or 19.1 million units — in 2011.

“We suspect December quarter retail data is likely to provide even more interesting tablet cannibalization data points,” writes Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope. Here’s a hint what the data might show: more bad news for notebooks.

The iPhone’s impressive GPU is supplied by Imagination Technologies, and it’s already powerful enough to run advanced 3D graphics engines like the Unreal 3 Engine. Unbelievably, though, it’s slated to get a lot better, after it was announced that Imagination has just acquired Caustic Graphics, a company with even more impressive 3D graphics technology to boast of.

Sick of waiting for Apple to make up its mind on when its going to pilot iTunes into the cloud? Skeptical that Google’s going to do it any quicker? Recognize Spotify in the United States for what it is: a pipe dream that the music publishers will never let happen?

Time to throw your collected tracks online yourself, and cloud-streaming music service mSpot is here to help you make that happen, in conjunction with a free, just released iOS app.

Judging by the video above, mSpot’s actually got me interested: $3.99 for 40GB of online storage is actually a pretty decent price, especially given the slickness of their web interface. I’m about to move, shipping my iMac over and working entirely on my 64GB MacBook Air for the next month… maybe it wouldn’t be a shabby idea to throw my music collection up on mSpot before I leave.

In these topsy-turvy tech days, when some media titans are betting that digital will bring the end of print publications as we know them, the iPad is playing a pivotal role.

Apple’s “magical” tablet is one of the first consumer electronic devices to act as an unobscured window for the transmission of words and ideas.

“The iPad’s design is attractive, but without flourish or adornment: masterfully subtle construction and invisible tech forms a unibody frame to a vaster world that it both conveys and crystallizes. Every iOS device features only a single interface button, so it’s minimalist to the extreme.

With every app you call up, you gaze into a different world… sometimes local to your device, sometimes transient, sometimes alien and far beyond. The device itself, though, is only meant to be a complimentary and attractive frame, perfectly realized to the purpose of conveyance.”

CoM’s own John Brownlee has much to say about Chrome, the iPad and the Crossroads of Civilization in his maiden column over at Gearfuse, check it out.

The US Army wants to equip soldiers with smartphones as a part of their standard equipment – leaving it up to individuals to decide which one they want.

The Army would issue these smartphones just like any other piece of equipment a soldier receives and pay the bills, too. Two types would be offered, the iPhone or an Android phone.

“One of the options potentially is to make it a piece of equipment in a soldier’s clothing bag,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center.

It wasn’t surprising that the first iAd to appear on the iPad is a movie trailer for the nerd nirvana ‘Tron Legacy’ and produced by Disney, where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder. The iAd won’t be officially released until 2011, but the trailer gives iPad owners a glimpse of things to come.

Available within the TV Guide iPad app, the iAd is “chock-full of the rich graphics, touch navigation and video native to apps,” according to an Ad Age report. The iPad version includes “close to 10 minutes of video, images from the movie, a theater locator with showtimes, and a preview of the movie soundtrack with the option to purchase on iTunes without leaving the ad.”

Apple’s Camera Connection Kit for iPad is a pretty useful set of dongles for the on-the-go photographer, but it does seem somewhat redundant: why did Apple need to display two different dongles when it could have designed one dongle that read USB and SD cards simultaneously?

Such was the thinking that lead us to admire August’s 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, which smashed together both dongles into one converging, dual-purpose accessory.

Pretty neat, but the fancy lads over at MIC have just one-upped the 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit… literally. Meet the 3-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, replete with a USB port, an SD card slot and a microSD card reader.. all for only $29.90. Take that!

Yesterday, we reported that Toshiba would be building new facility in order to supply Apple with high-res displays for future iPhones and iPads… and that Cupertino itself might have sunk some cash in to the project to get it off the ground.

Today, Toshiba’s denying Apple’s involvement.

If you love Chair’s Infinity Blade as much as we did but have played it so much that you’ve simply maxed out what there is to do in the game, great news: Chair’s Donald Mustard has just announced that the first update to the masterful sword fighting game will be coming out next week, just in time for Christmas.

Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster has a spotty history of prediction, but we think his latest pronouncement is probably right: if Verizon’s the next network that gets the iPhone, it will only be at AT&T’s expense.

Combining equal doses of high tech gadgetry and holiday schmaltz, members of the North Point iBand in Alpharetta, Georgia staged an entertaining performance of holiday classics utilizing only iPads and iPhones as instruments. An infectious selection of holiday ditties, combined with Casio’esque sonic fidelity, ensured that a good time was had by all!

Classics performed include Carol of the Bells, Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, and Feliz Navidad. Apps used include SoundGrid, NLogFree, Melody Bell, Guitarist (Nylon String & Electric), iGog and Bassist.

Apparently these guys also didn’t get the memo about iPads being only for consumption…

[via VisualNews]

We’ve already reported how Apple is working on a remote computing system that will be enabled by the iPhone 5.

Equipped with a Near Field Communications (NFC) chip, the iPhone 5 may allow user to load their Home folders on guest Macs when they travel, or log in at school or work. All the user would have to do is tap their iPhone 5 on a NFC-equipped Mac, and the machine would load their Home folder files, settings and preferences.

But if Apple equipped all of its products with NFC chips, which are used for short-range authentication, the technology could be used for super-easy set-up of a new Apple gear, or for easily transferring files and media between different Apple devices.

For example, users could easily connect a new iPad to their home Wi-Fi network, say, just by bringing the tablet within four inches of a NFC-equipped AirPort base station.

“Imagine you touch an AirPort with a new iPad and the Wi-Fi is connected — with full security — in less than a second,” said Gerald Madlmayr, a NFC expert based in Vienna. “No configuration is necessary any more. This makes this technology pretty useful.”

Stuck for a gift for the Mac lover in your life? How about our brand new, limited-edition MILF T-shirt?

Just in time for the holidays, we’ve launched our first venture into fine geek apparel: a limited-edition shirt designed just for fans of the Mac. (If you don’t get it, hit the jump for a clue).

Just $22.99, the shirt is limited to 100 copies, so it’s super exclusive. Order it before the 19th you’ll get it in time for the big day.

We’ve teamed up with MightTees, the Seattle-based t-shirt empire famous for classics like His Steveness and Say Anything.

The CultofMac MILF shirt is totally custom branded. 100% designed, made, and printed in the USA. 100% sweatshop free. It’s awesome. A very fine tee indeed.