Did you know that the Mac only got full screen desktop wallpaper in System 8? It sounds amazing until you realize that the first iPhone didn’t have any wallpaper at all – just a black void hanging malevolently behind the home screen icons.

Over at the Egg Freckles blog, Thomas Brand details the history of wallpaper on the Mac. It’s not just a bunch of pictures either. In fact, there are no pictures at all (although there are lots of download links for you). What you get is a neat overview of how the desktop evolved closely along with the hardware it was running on.

And Thomas’ favorite Apple wallpaper of all time? Mavericks’ wave. It’s hard to disagree.

Source: Egg Freckles
Via: TUAW

Hey RSS refugees (RSS-u-gees?). Did you sign up for a Feed Wrangler account so you could import all your Google Reader feeds and keep using them in something like the Excellent Mr. Reader app? Me too. And did you see that Feed Wrangler pretty much just ignored all your carefully thought-out and painstakingly organized folders, instead dumping all your feeds into one big list? So you thought “Screw this” and used the free Feedly instead?

Me too.

But Feed Wrangler has now tweaked its import engine so all your folders will be converted into Smart Feeds. Better still, you just need to re-import your exported Google Reader OPML file and it’ll fix everything up for you.

The fine folks at Lucky Frame (Bad Hotel, Pugs Luv Beats) have just announced a brand new game, this one coming to iPad and Android July 16th, with a desktop version for Mac and PC soon thereafter.

While there’s a definite shortage of pugs in Gentlemen!, there is definitely a surfeit of pigeons. This here is a frantic two-player game with a Victorian dueling theme, letting you go head to head on the same iPad or Android tablet. You’ll settle your grievance with bombs, knives, and (duh) deadly homing pigeons. You’ll need to find a balance of technique, cunning, and blind panic to come out ahead of the game, and win the duel. It’s two players, one screen, so if you’re lacking in friends, maybe get your pug to play along.

If you’re a science fiction or fantasy fan, and you own an iPad, Android tablet, or other e-reader device, you owe it to yourself to check out the second annual Humble eBook Bundle, with a fantastic selection of genre books ready to go, DRM-free. Oh, and you can pay what you want for them, as well. Which includes, “nothing,” you skinflint.

What do Woz and Stephen Fry have in common, besides a fascination with technology and love of all things Apple? The answer: They’ve both been using (and plugging) a free iPhone app from Ireland called Soundwave Music Discovery that lets you see — in some rather novel ways — what other people are listening to. In a way, it’s sort of like Twitter for music.

Back in April, we told you about Rolomotion, a new gaming platform for iOS that leverages the iPhone’s hardware sensors to create a Wii-like gaming experience on the Apple TV. Developed by Rolocule Games, the first Rolomotion game is available in the App Store, and it’s called Motion Tennis.

As the name implies, it’s a tennis game that requires an iPhone and Apple TV. Unlike most iOS games, the iPhone acts as a motion-aware controller. While it’s certainly not as polished as playing Wii Sports, Rolomotion is forecasting the future of Apple TV gaming.

Apple released the third beta of OS X 10.8.5 (build 12F17) to developers today.  In the seed note Apple asks developers to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics, Wake from Sleep, PDF viewing, and Mobile Device Management.

Given the planned release of OS X Mavericks this fall, 10.8.5 could very well end up being the last major version of Mountain Lion before Mavericks ships to the public. A developer beta of Mavericks was made available to developers the week of WWDC.

Source: Apple

iTranslate Voice has been the premiere language translation app in the App Store for awhile. Apple even featured it as one of the best apps of 2012.

Today Sonico Mobile, the company behind iTranslate, has released version 2.0 of the app with additional languages, a polished design, and a slick multi-lingual communication tool called AirTranslate.

Twitter’s Vine app was at the top of the mini-video sharing game until Instagram came along and crushed it by allowing users to upload 15-second video clips. With Instagram’s massive user base, you would think that Vine doesn’t have a fighting chance.

In the biggest update the iPhone app has seen yet, Vine has proven otherwise.

You knew there’d have to be a Lone Ranger iOS game, and it’s up now at the App Store, just in time for the release of the movie starring Johnny Depp.

Apple likes to celebrate product anniversaries and other big milestones. The upcoming 5th anniversary of the App Store’s existence is no exception, and the company has sent out celebratory posters for the occasion to publications.

Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times tweeted the above picture earlier today. The App Store doesn’t actually turn five years old until July 10th, so Apple must be trying to raise awareness beforehand.

The new Mac Pro looks incredible. It’s simple, compact and elegant, yet packs enough horsepower to do some serious work. Even though we don’t know what its final price tag will be, there’s one addition that could definitely improve upon the design of the Mac Pro: glass.

Concept artist Martin Hajek created some new mockups of what the Mac Pro would look like if its beautiful guts were on display through a glass case, and the final results are pretty incredible looking:

I’ve long been a big fan of Aviiq‘s laptop stands — so much so that I almost never use my MBP without a stand under it. Why? It props the MacBook up at an angle better suited to typing, raises the screen close to eye-level, and allows for better cooling by allowing for airflow between the MacBook’s bottom and the desk.

Aviiq has just refreshed the fancier of the two models, the Portable Laptop Stand, and brought down the price considerably.

Grove was last seen on these hallowed pages when I wrote about the SkateBack, an iPhone 5 rear panel fashioned from the offcuts of old skateboards. Now I actually have a skate-derived case in my hands. It’s still for the iPhone 5, but it’s a full case, not just a rear panel, and it comes in the same shape as Grove’s bamboo cases.

It’s pretty good. It’s also $150.

Details are short on the ground, but The New York Times’ Brian X. Chen is reporting on Twitter that Samsung has purchaseds Boxee, maker of the Boxee Box, one of the Apple TV’s main competitors.

If you’ve been looking for a stylish smartphone or tablet charger with sustainable economic benefits to boot, then this Cult of Mac Deals offer is going to be a sight for sore eyes.

Waka Waka POWER’s patented chip technology allows for solar charging that is 200% more efficient than most competitors. Rock-solid durability and the capability to charge via USB (smartphones, tablets, bluetooth devices, and everything else that charges via USB), solar, or AC guarantees you’ll never be without power again. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for only $59.99 for a limited time.

“In today’s world, there’s no reason not to be constantly simulated,” says Samsung. “With Apex, you can be constantly watching movies, browsing Facebook, and receiving head from a robotic mouth, all at the same time.”

An absolutely priceless Onion News Network video, with perhaps the best headline of all time: “New Wearable Computer Also Sucks Your Dick.” Check out the video after the jump.

Ashton Kutcher’s cinema debut as Steven Paul Jobs is just six weeks away, so it’s about time to start plastering movie theater walls with JOBS posters.

A new poster for Kutcher’s movie was released today and features a colorful portrait of Ashton in the role of Steve Jobs, along with the tagline “Some see what’s possible, others change what’s possible.”

The movie arrives in theaters August 16th and also stars James Woods, Dermot Mulroney, Amanda Crew, and Josh Gad. Here’s the first official trailer:

Android’s share of the worldwide smartphone market may be sizably bigger than that of its rivals, but when it comes to mobile advertising, iOS remains king. According to the latest data from mobile ad firm Velti, Apple’s share grew from 59% to 64% between May 2012 and May 2013.

Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, one of the hackers responsible for exploiting a security flaw in AT&T’s website to steal over 110,000 email addresses from iPad subscribers, has appealed the 41-month sentence that was handed to him back in March.

Auernheimer still maintains he did not violate any laws when he accessed AT&T’s servers, and notes that all of the information he obtained was already available to the public on the Internet.

Suing Apple for patent infringement is so de rigeur right now that even colleges are getting in on the action: Boston University has just sued Apple for infringing upon one of their 1997 patents.

Limbo is one of the best games on Mac. A haunting, monochrome adventure in which you guide the glowing-eyed silhouette of a nameless boy on the “edge of hell” looking for his sister, it’s a classic of game design… and now it’s available on iOS. You can grab it now on the App Store.

EE, currently the United Kingdom’s only 4G LTE provider, has just announced that it will double its 4G speeds in 12 cities starting tomorrow, July 4. The carrier says that the average connection will increase to between 12 Mbps and 30 Mbps, which is twice the average speed of home broadband in the U.K.

EE has also announced new “pay-for-speed” plans that will allow customers to pay higher fees for faster connections from September.

Every time you turn on your MacBook, iPhone or iPad, an invisible force field starts pulsing out from it, made up entirely of complex patterns of magnetic and electric fields.

These fields can be visualized. And as it turns out, they make really cool looking light paintings.

Apple is close to securing a deal that will bring Time Warner Cable subscribers access to their cable television service through the Apple TV, according to sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, who have been speaking to Bloomberg.

The two companies are expected to announce the deal “within a few months.”