A promising feature of the upcoming iOS 7 is the automatic updating feature for apps. As Senator John McCain knows, manually updating ever sigle app on your iOS device–especially as you start to collect a bunch–can be a real time sink.

Fortunately, iOS 7 beta has the ability to just let all your apps update in the background, automagically, with nary a trip to the App Store UPdates tab to waste your time. HOwever, if you want to be able to pick and choose which apps to update, you’ll need to make a trip to the Settings app.

WWDC 2013 came and went without Apple saying anything about the Voice Memos app that was noticeably absent from the first iOS 7 beta. With the release of the iOS 7 beta 2, Apple revealed a completely redesigned Voice Memos app that comes installed on iOS by default.

The new app ditches the old skeuomorphic look of the microphone in favor of a UI that’s more consistent with the flat, parallax look of the other iOS 7 default apps.

Here’s a GIF of how the new Voice Memos works:

As we predicted, iOS 7 Beta 2 dropped for developers today, but substantially, it’s the first iOS 7 beta to support the iPad 2, Retina iPad and iPad mini.

We’ve already seen official shots of what iOS 7 looks like running on the iPad, as well as shots of iOS 7 running on Xcode’s iPad emulator. Now, though, we’ll get to finally see it running on a real device.

Here are the direct download links:

The iOS 7 beta 2 just drop today – true to our prediction – and  is now available to developers. The first iPs and iPad mini betas for iOS 7 were also released this morning. The update can be installed over the air or downloaded directly from the Dev Center

Here are the download links:

The iPad continues to dominate all other tablets in web usage in North America, according to the latest study from Chitika.

Apple’s iPad claimed 82.4% of North American tablet traffic in May, an overall share jump of 1.4% since January. Chitika breaks down the the current web traffic statistics as follows:

Chair Entertainment has kept Infinity Blade II fans fed with a steady supply of great updates for what many consider one of the best looking games on the App Store.

If you haven’t tried battling your way through the castle in Infinity Blade II there’s never been a better time to give it a shot than now, as Chair just dropped the price to a buck. The Summer Kick-Off sale for Infinity Blade II ends on June 30th after which it will go back to its full price.

Source: iTunes

AAPL shares have dropped below $400 in early morning trading on Monday. The DOW and NASDAQ both opened to big losses as they dropped 220 points and 53 points.

The share price drop may also be due in part to a report this morning that Apple has significantly reduced iPhone orders for the remainder of 2013. AAPL shares dropped below $400 in April for the first time in over 16 months.

Apple is expected to seed its second iOS 7 beta to developers today, two weeks after it released the first during the Worldwide Developers Conference, according to carrier sources. The update it expected to fix bugs that were present in the first beta, and address things like performance and battery life. We may even see some more new features.

What we’ve got here is arguably the coolest and most functional iPad case design yet with the ExoShift. Most iPad cases only cover your iPad’s screen. This premium faux leather slip case not only covers your tablet in style, but serves as an adjustable stand.

And we’ve got it for only $32.99 during this limited time offer from Cult of Mac Deals.

Safari has been updated in OS X Mavericks, of course, with a host of under-the-hood improvements, along with quite a few new features. One of them lets you see what your social connections are recommending to their various social network sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In.

If you want easy access to the links your friends, acquaintances, and business contacts are sharing on their social sites, all you need to do is add your social network credentials, and then open up Safari.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak famously slammed the one-minute teaser for Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs biopic and its script back in January, but that doesn’t mean he has a hatred for JOBS before he’s even seen it. In fact, Woz says he’s open to it as long as it’s entertaining and inspirational, and accurately portrays what really happened during the early days of Apple.

But he’s concerned the movie will depict Steve Jobs as a saint who was immune to failure.

Apple is reportedly reducing its iPhone orders for the remainder of 2013, according to supply chain checks carried out by analyst Peter Misek. Orders for July-September has been significantly slashed from 40-45 million units to 25-30 million units, while Apple’s holiday quarter build plans have fallen from 55-60 million units to 50-55 million units.

Imgur has today launched its official Android app via Google Play. The free download brings all of your favorite Imgur features to your mobile device, including the ability to browse viral images, comment and vote on images, and upload images directly from your smartphone.

Don’t worry, iOS users — Imgur is also coming to the App Store soon.

Amazon has just update its Instant Video app for the iPhone and iPad today. The bad news is there’s still no AirPlay video support, but there is a new interface that makes it a lot easier for you to discover movies and television shows you want to watch.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reached a deal with Apple to supply its next-generation A8, A9, and A9X processors for iOS devices, according to industry sources. The company will reportedly begin manufacturing the chips using a 20-nanometer process, then upgrade to 16-nanometer and later 10-nanometer processes in the future.

The new Mac Pro is looking like it will be an absolute powerhouse, but even regulars Macs should see a major performance improvement running OS X 10.9 Mavericks, thanks to the new operating system’s incorporation of OpenGL 4.

With iOS 7, when you plug an unauthorized Lightning cable into your iOS device, you’ll get a notification that informs you you’re not using a “certified” Lightning accessory, and that it “may not work reliably” with your device.

But after just two weeks, one accessory maker has already cracked Apple’s detection and fooled iOS 7 into thinking uncertified Lightning accessories are certified ones.

This is a fantastic idea. When Apple overhauled iTunes in the latest version, they did something pretty with Album View, so that the color of the Album View was matched to the dominant color in that album’s artwork.

It’s a nice effect, and as Reddit user Bostonlbi has shown, it looks even prettier on iOS 7, especially if you change the color of the rest of the interface elements with the second and third most dominant colors. Come on, Apple! It’s not too late to take this idea and run with it!

Are you a parent who nearly lost his or her mind and committed an act of infanticide when you discovered that your happy little sprog, in the space of five minutes playing unsupervised with your iPhone, somehow amassed an iTunes bill of over $1,000 in frickin’ Smurfberries? Well, Apple’s ready to help you, but even if you were only burnt for less than $30 because of the way in-app purchases used to work, Apple is ready to fork over a $5 iTunes gift card as a way o make amends… and settle a class-action lawsuit.

Facebook’s getting into the content scraping biz. So claims The Wall Street Journal, at least: they say that the world’s largest social network is putting together a news aggregation service, a la Flipboard or Zite.

Hutchison Whampoa, owner of Three U.K., has today acquired O2 Ireland in a deal worth €850 million ($1.1 billion). Telefonica, O2’s parent company, believes the move will “create a new competitive dynamic in the Irish market,” which Three can now claim 37.5% of with 2 million active subscribers.

People love large and shiny objects. So we can be forgiven for being absolutely blown away by Google’s idea of relaying IP across the skies via giant balloons to remote areas where Internet connectivity would otherwise not exist.

The most jaw-dropping aspect of the Loon project is the fact that the system uses algorithms to convert published windspeed and direction data into navigation using algorithms. (Balloons are moved by finding an altitude at which the air is moving in the right direction.)

So much about this project is dazzling — the scope and audacity of it; the solar-powered servers-in-the-sky; and the fact that balloons will deliver the Internet to remote areas — that the core aspect of Loon is easy to overlook.

The key thing about Loon is mesh networking.

OS X Mavericks (named after a surfing hot spot in California) was announced recently, and it contains a ton of new features for Mac users to pore over and learn anew. While not as incredible an overhaul as the concurrent update to iOS 7, Mavericks still contains some fairly helpful features and additions to make it worth some poking around, even in the beta.

Speaking of the beta, remember that any of the stuff we talk about below may only exist in the beta, or in some other form, so enjoy playing around with these things, but don’t worry when things are different when Mavericks releases for real in the Fall.

That said, let’s take a look at five new, hidden, and above all, interesting, features of the latest beta for OS X: Mavericks.

Remember that the OS X Mavericks beta isn’t a final version—it’s meant to be used by developers to ensure that their software will work with Apple’s latest and greatest. With that disclaimer in mind, let’s check out yet another little feature in the beta.

Prior to OS X Mavericks beta, the Dashboard, loaded with useful widgets of all stripe, used to be limited to two states: disabled, or locked to the top left side of the Mission Control screen.

Now, however, with the advent of OS X Mavericks beta, that’s no longer the case. The Dashboard is now treated the same as any other Space when enabled. Here’s how to get it enabled, and then how to move it around.

Apple posted a public notice called “Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy” in which they dodge and weave their way through key bits of information.

It’s not clear whether this deliberately cagey language is done to comply with the unconstitutional and illegal FISA requirements or whether Apple chose to hide this information for its own purposes, but I suspect the former, and I’ll tell you why.

But first, let’s look at Apple’s constrained, disingenuous statement.