Apple may be signing its first licensing deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) as soon as next week, according to several sources with knowledge of the matter, says The Verge. UMG and Apple are in the final stages of negotiations, and Warner Music is close behind, say those sources. All Apple needs now to complete the licensing for what the media has dubbed iRadio is an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment and other music publishers.

Apple is widely expected to launch a streaming music service later this year, perhaps this summer, with features similar to Pandora, assuming it can get all the licensing squared away for such a service.

At one point in time, Dom had a beautiful MacBook and iPad that he loved very very much. Then one day, when Dom was out having some fun, thieves broke into his London flat and stole his MacBook and iPad. Assholes.

After calling the police and trying to recover his stolen MacBook and iPad, Dom remembered he had Hidden App installed on the MacBook. And one month later, when the MacBook finally got connected to the Internet again, it started broadcasting all the thieves secrets, from its new home in Iran.

Unfortunately, Iran is a bit out of the police’s jurisdiction, but at least Dom gets to know who his adversary is, incase they ever cross paths at an airport. On top of that, Dom’s created an awesome Tumblr so everyone can know what the thieves are up to.

Here are some of the pictures Dom’s MacBook thieves have taken:

Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs has kept herself busy with a number of different projects since the passing of her late husband. Yet, despite hanging out with the Clintons, one thing Jobs hasn’t done is offer an interview to a major news outlet.

Friday, April 12th on Rock Center with Brian Williams, Laurene Powell Jobs is set to be interviewed, for the first time since Steve’s passing, to advocate for young undocumented immigrants.

You know how when you use the iOS Calendar app, you can tap on the little arrows to the right or left of the Day or the Month? This will move you one unit per tap, so when you’re in Month view, you’ll move forward one month if you tap on the right arrow, and one month back if you tap on the left arrow. Same thing with the Day view: tap on the left arrow to move back one day, the right arrow to move forward one day. Simple, right?

Turns out that you can move through the calendar even faster in either Day or Month view.

Yes, we all know that Apple’s iOS devices have A4, or A5, or A6 processors in them… but what are they? These are all types of systems-on-a-chip, or SoC for short, and they are more than just processors: they are the equivalent of someone putting almost an entire PC desktop on a single chip the size of an infant’s fingernail.

How many times have you seen a trailer for an upcoming movie and thought, “That looks interesting. I’ll have to see that!” Then it hits the theaters, goes to DVD, and you forget about it until it shows up in the Walmart bin months later.

Since I reviewed the original version of TodoMovies last summer, I’ve continued to use the app to keep track of movies I want to watch. Today TodoMovies 2 was released in the App Store with some great feature additions. This is the iPhone app every movie lover needs.

Samsung just announced a mega-sized phone. It’s freaking big. Like, it’s almost as big as the iPad mini, kind of. It’s called the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3, and it’s got a ridiculously huge 6.3-inch display.

If the Galaxy Note II was a puny “phablet” with its 5.5-inch display, then we have no idea what to nickname this gargantuan “phone.” Just look at how monstrous it is next to the iPhone 5! Have fun taking calls on that in public.

Source: Reddit

I called the Pad&Quill Aria the “classiest iPad mini case yet,” and I’ll stand by that after using it for a week or two. It’s also most definitely the sturdiest, best crafted case I’ve ever seen, and the fanciest that Brian Holmes and the P&Q crew has come up with to date.

But can such a fancy case ever be practical? Let’s take a look.

Even though the iPhone 5 was launched in October of 2012, many analysts and pundits believe that Apple will likely release the iPhone 5S sometime this summer.

KGI Securities analysts Ming-Chi Kuo thinks that you shouldn’t get your hopes too high for a new iPhone though. In a report he released today, Kuo claims Apple is facing production problems on both the iPhone 5 and cheaper iPhone and that they won’t launch until Q3 of 2013.

Earlier this month, Funny or Die released a trailer for its upcoming comedy about Steve Jobs, iSteve. Starring Justin Long from Apple’s own Mac vs. PC ads, the movie is set to debut online Monday, April 15th. Unlike Ashton Kutcher’s JOBS biopic, iSteve is an intentional parody of Apple lore.

The movie is written and directed by Ryan Perez, a former Saturday Night Live writer who has taken quite a bit of “dramatic license.”

Like a psychic, the bread and butter of most analysts is to make wild predictions to their clients and then, when they don’t come true, pretend like those predictions were never made to begin with. When that fails, another ploys analysts, like psychics, sometimes use is overly vague predictions that could literally be fulfilled by anything.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty’s latest bit of soothsaying falls into the latter cam: she claims that after meeting with Apple management recently, she feels quite certain that Apple could release a “killer app” this year. Only one, Katy?

As the last major carrier in the U.S. to sell the iPhone, T-Mobile has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to become competitive with AT&T, Verizon, and even Sprint. With the iPhone 5 set to launch on T-Mobile tomorrow, the carrier is preparing a massive media blitz to try and win new customers.

Along with its “uncarrier” plans and the $100 iPhone 5 price point, T-Mobile has been busy training its employees on the benefits of switching to T-Mobile from a cost perspective, and right now it looks like T-Mobile is the cheapest carrier to roll with on your iPhone.

If you’re looking to do more with their photos – things like image manipulation and other advanced techniques – it’s not uncommon to hear one word uttered as a recommendation: Photoshop. But Photoshop is expensive – and can be a real pain to wrap your head around. This Cult of Mac Deals offer may just offer that alternative you’ve been looking for.

PhotoDirector 4 is a comprehensive, powerful, and intuitive solution to create professional looking photos. From the moment your photos are imported, you are empowered with new and unique features that bring out depth and sharpness in your masterpieces. Portraits become flawless, scenery transforms to your desire. No matter what kind of photographer you are, or what kind of photos you take, PhotoDirector will give you the tools for professional perfection. And in this deal, we’re offering it to you for just $49.

I have done a lot writing in my day, and there are times when I want to just let the words fly freely faster than I can possibly type them. When I’ve worked on my talks for seminars or wanted to work out some thoughts on a major piece of writing, I have given the reins to Dragon Dictate.

This Cult of Mac Deals offer has a huge savings on Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac – which has been an indispensable tool for me as a writer. You can get it for only $100 – that’s 50% off the regular price!

Hey fellas. You know what the laydeez love more than anything? Ferrari-branded gear, that’s what. When they see a man in a Ferrari jacket, or toting a Ferrari laptop, or – best of all – topped with a Ferrari baseball cap, do you know what she thinks? She thinks that you must own a Ferrari! Or that you drive one for a living, probably in those macho Formula One races.

More than anything, she can’t stop thinking about your Grand Prix.

Vine is being used to tell stories at The Tribeca Film Festival, an event founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. The festival takes place later this month, and there’s a competition for ultra-short films shot exclusively on Vine, Twitter’s video sharing app for the iPhone.

Aspiring filmmakers have been submitting Vines to Tribeca under the #6SECFILMS hashtag on Twitter. The submissions that make the cut will be highlighted on the festival’s website later this month and receive a cash prize. 

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola believes Apple and Google-owned Motorola are more interested in using litigation as a business strategy than they are in resolving patent disputes. Both companies accused each other of infringing patents related to wireless technologies back in 2010, and today the case is still on going.

“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end,” said Judge Scola in an order dated yesterday. “That is not a proper use of this court.”

Face it. Camera bags are dorky as all get-out. I avoid them entirely, either dropping my camera into the pocket of a regular bag with a pair of woolen socks underneath for padding (true, and it works great in my Rickshaw Zero Messenger) or putting it and its accessories into a padded liner that slips into any other bag I might want to use.

But Manfrotto (Bogen in the U.S) has hit on the formula for cool camera bags. The secret? Calling them “Stile” bags and taking photos of them being used by young people in leather jackets.

You know when you make a Skype call and your own voice echoes back at you, and you find it impossible to concentrate on anything except VIOLENCE and KILLING! Please make it STOP!?

And you also know how cool it is when you pull out your credit card, or slip your bank card into an ATM and it just doesn’t work? Like it’s been zeroed out by magnets? Well, imagine if you could somehow combine these two things into one.

You need imagine no more: Daniel Weyer has done the hard work for you. Behold! The MagSkin case.

EA just released the first update to Real Racing 3 on iOS, and it adds a whole bunch of new content for you to enjoy. In addition to two new Chevrolets, you can also look forward to more than 100 new events, a new game mode, cloud save syncing, and new social features.

Readdle Documents has today been updated with support for the iPhone, following its launch on the iPad back in January. Documents isn’t just a file manager, but also a document editor, a web browser, and a media player. So whether you’re editing a letter, organizing some photos, or you just want to kick back and watch that movie you downloaded, Documents will let you do it all — and for free.

You can get some pretty cool gadgets that can be remote controlled by your smartphones and tablets, such as helicopters, cars, and even tanks. But who wants one of those when you can control the real think?

At the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam this week, Hugo Teso, a pilot turned IT technician, demonstrated the ability to remotely hijack an airplane using a smartphone and a radio transmitter.

With so much interest in Apple’s unreleased iOS devices, the Cupertino has had a difficult time trying to prevent leaks of late. We saw numerous components for recent iPads, the iPhone 5, and the iPad mini ahead of their official unveilings, and now we’re beginning to see parts believed to be from Apple’s next generation of devices.

The vibration motor and switches pictured above are reportedly destined for Apple’s rumored low-cost iPhone, which could launch sometime this year.

No one wants to own a Blackberry. That’s the takeaway from a new poll which asks people which device they’d never be caught dead using. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t be caught dead buying an iPhone, though.

The Mac OS X Calendar is great for a lot of things, not least of which scheduling reminders of appointments and such via the built-in alert system. But did you know that Calendar can do a lot more than that? It can alert you to an upcoming event with an Email or a Notification, and it can even open a file on schedule.

If you’ve ever wanted to open a website, MP3, or other such file on your Mac at a certain day and time, keep reading.