Cult of Mac Deals has another stellar app bundle lined up for our readers — with a total savings of over $400 on 9 great Mac apps! The apps in this bundle can help you in a wide variety of activities, from digital media with Roxio Toast to searching for files more efficiently and effectively with Houdah Tembo to keeping track of your home inventory easily with Compartments.

All of these apps would normally retail for $453 on their own. But thanks to Cult of Mac Deals you can get all of them for only $49 for a limited time. That’s an 89% savings!

Apple and Facebook are two tech titans that have been known to butt heads every now and then. When Apple introduced the Ping social network in iTunes, Facebook denied Apple access to integrate the two networks. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Ping is just one example — there have been multiple talks behind closed doors that have resulted in the two companies almost parting ways for good.

Over the weekend, Mashable posted inside information on the convoluted history of Apple and Facebook. Stories include the Facebook integration in iOS 4 that never saw the light of day, Steve Jobs paying Mark Zuckerberg a visit about an iPad app, and how Facebook and Apple nearly fell out because of HP.

In 1997, Apple was in deep financial trouble. Wired published a now-famous cover story: “101 Ways to Save Apple.”

Some of the advice was prescient, some was silly, but it was a fascinating list of suggestions. And what actually happened between now and then is even more interesting.

Here, for the first time, is a really detailed followup to each and every one of Wired‘s 101 suggestions.

When Apple updated the iTunes 10 icon earlier this year, it sparked huge controversy among Mac users everywhere — many branded the new icon ugly, lifeless, and unconventional. The debate showed that lots of Mac users like to see beautiful apps with beautiful icons.

Here are 15 of our favorite Mac OS X icons from 2010 that stand out for being beautifully designed, brilliantly colorful, and wonderfully unique. We’ve selected icons that make you want to find out more about an application, and that you’d proudly place in your dock for all to see.

We hope you like them. Check them out after the break. If you know better icons, please tell us about them in the comments. Free apps for the best ideas.

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.

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.

The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB iPod Touch + $30 Gift Card for $295.00 at Target; and a Sony Speaker Dock Clock Radio For iPod/iPhone for $79.99 at Office Depot.

We’ll continue to update this guide as more retailers announce their Black Friday offerings in the run up to the big day.