Apple was expected to send out invitations to an upcoming iPad mini announcement on October 10, but that date has now come and gone, and we’re still left wondering when the tiny tablet is going to get its grand unveiling. Recent reports have suggested that the device has been postponed due to production delays, but according to AllThingsD, that’s not the case.

Instead, Apple will be holding its event on October 23, sources claim — just three days before Microsoft’s new Surface tablet begins shipping in the United States.

The just-released seventh generation iPod nano has just started being seen in stores and shipping from online pre-orders, but it already has a software update waiting for it. If you get a new iPod nano and plug it into iTunes to set it up and sync, you’ll likely see a new update that you’ll need to apply before you can use it.

It only took two days, but ClassicMap is no longer available on the Apple iTunes App Store. We reported on the app a couple of days ago, but now clicking on any iTunes link for the app returns a “No longer available in the US iTunes store,” which basically means it’s no longer for sale.

We just saw these linked over at The Loop by Jim Dalrymple, and just had to share. The designer who made the images above and below is Anton Repponen, and they were shared out by Chicago design firm Coudal Partners. We’ve reached out to Repponen via email, and will update this post with his response.

Way back in June, we told you that iOS 6 would have new, integrated emergency alert and AMBER Alert notifications. When you go looking for them, you may not find them. Even if, as some folks out there like to say, you “scroll all the way to the bottom” of the Notifications pane in the Settings app, if your carrier hasn’t implemented the alerts, yet, you won’t see them in there.

I suppose you can keep trying, but we’re here to keep you from wasting your time.

There’s been a lot of hoopla today about Rockmelt, a free new iPad app for browsing the web. Everyone keeps calling Rockmelt a browser, but I disagree. This is not what I call a browser. It’s a feed reader.

What is Apple’s perfect recipe for the living room TV experience? The tech industry has been asking itself that question since rumors of an Apple-branded TV set started circulating months and months ago. While ‘iTV’ rumors have died down recently due to the iPhone 5 and iPad mini hype, Apple has quietly been trying to work out licensing deals with Hollywood for a mysterious iCloud, TV-ish service. Will it be baked into iTunes, the current Apple TV, or come packaged in a totally new device? These are the questions.

While Apple’s real plans are obviously shrouded in mystery, there’s a very strong case to be made for using existing ingredients to make the TV experience Apple ultimately desires. The recipe is actually a lot simpler than you may think. An Apple TV set-top box and iOS device may be all it takes.

Apple and Samsung are in the midst of what is perhaps the most heated patent lawsuit in history, but that doesn’t mean the two companies won’t still steal from each other’s camps. One of Samsung’s most prominent chip designers has joined Apple, the Korean company’s sworn enemy. “Veteran” processor guru Jim Mergard could help Apple create proprietary chips for the Mac, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Mergard’s expertise could mean that Apple will eventually switch from Intel on the Mac to its own processors, like its in-house “A” chip series for iOS devices.

The two main questions I always get asked about jailbreaking are, “How do I jailbreak?” and “Can my iPhone even be jailbroken?” Because a jailbreak usually has to be manufactured for each new release of iOS, there’s a good chance that certain version of iOS are jailbreak friendly while others are not. For instance, there’s no public jailbreak for iOS 6 yet.

So, how do you check to see if the iOS device you use is jailbreakable or not?. You could search Google for a few minutes trying to find the right tool, or you could visit a handy web app called JailbreakStatus.

We’ve all done it. Passed our beloved iPhone handset to a young child, in hopes that they’ll play a game for a bit and let the grownups continue drinking talking. Then the youngester in question ends up hitting the Home button, dropping into that secret stash of photos, or looking at your web history. Or even worse, playing some splatter-horror game that you forgot was even on the dang thing.

Guided Access is part of iOS 6’s accessibility options, but it can be useful for folks without the need for that specific adaptation. Here’s how to enable it for use. If you’re looking for a feature similar to iPhone guest mode, Guided Access can be a helpful alternative for limiting access to specific apps or features.

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The new Lightning to 30 Pin adapter has not won over many Apple fans. No one wants to pay $30 to be able to use their old iPhone accessories with the new iPhone 5, but it’s better than buying a new accessory altogether, right?

Double Helix Cables finally got their new dock adapter in the mail and naturally decided to tear it apart and find out what is inside. They found out that just like the new Lightning cables, Apple’s gone to some extra lengths to make the Lightning to 30 Pin Adapter unhackable and uncounterfeitable.

The Don’t Panic case is like a pair of comfy slippers for your iPad. As the name suggests, just using it is relaxing, the iPad-acessory equivalent of a valium or a well-mixed Old Fashioned at the end of a long day.

The floppy felt and leather sleeve is also a little like your embarrassing uncle. He has some horrible habits, and annoys you to death some times, but you can’t help loving him despite his foibles.

There are a few problems with sharing a batch of photos on the internet. You could make a Facebook album and toss around a link, but Facebook is messy, and ugly, and no one likes it. Or you can upload 12 different photos to Instagram in one hour and piss off all your friends. Or you can make a photoset of great pictures, but most people don’t know how to do that.

Tumblr is ready to change all those problems by introducing their new app called Photoset. It let’s you take a group of pictures, organize them, add captions and dates, and then upload them to the internet as a photoset so you can share them all together with just one link.

While Tim Cook has been CEO, Apple’s stock price has been soared into the stratosphere. Some believe Apple’s incredible growth is bound to plummet in the near future because, come on, how many more iPhones and iPads can they really sell to their U.S. and European customers?

In a new story for Fortune, Bill Powell argues that the sky’s still the limit for Apple, they just have to win in China. But Apple – with all its power and iconic devices that consumers lust for – is actually an underdog in the battle to win the Chinese handset market, and they’re going have to learn some new tricks if they hope to beat Samsung and others.

This is Dolphin. It’s a neat web browser for iPhone. You could easily be forgiven for saying: “What’s the point of having an extra browser? Mobile Safari does everything I need.”

Which is true. Safari does everything you need. But try Dolphin for just a few minutes, and you’ll discover a browser that does everything you need but in a totally different way. A way that’s much better suited to using on your phone while you’re moving around.

“I’d probably like a pair of those.” That’s what my wife said when she saw this deal. My wife has taken up running and doing quite well at it. She is, however, going through ear buds on a regular basis. Other runners I know have the same problem. Earbuds that fall out, wear out, aren’t comfortable, all that.

Well, looks like these earbuds might just fix that—The Active Lifestyle Earphone Package From MEElectronics: Stay Locked-in for Every Beat With The Sport-Fi S6 Earphone Set.

The new Lightning-to-30-pin adapter is a tiny thing, just a little dongle that routes signals from your old iPhone dock or connector to the appropriate pins in the new Lightning adapter. It’s smaller than the size of a matchbook.

Despite this, however, reader Doug P. emailed us with an image of how much packaging the adapter comes in: not only is Apple’s retail packaging for the adapter six times bigger than the adapter itself, but the shipping box it comes in looks like could easily hold up to thirty adapters without their packaging.

You probably don’t need the 10,000-watt iNuke Boom speaker for your iPhone, but you might just find a place in your home for the iNuke Boom Junior, a 1:23 scale model of Behringer’s basbehemoth.

This is a guest post by Ken Segall, a Silicon Valley advertising executive who worked closely with Steve Jobs. Among other things, Segall put that little “i” in front of the iMac and helped develop Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign. Segall is author of Insanely Simple, a very readable insightful account of what makes Apple tick.

Last time Apple went heavy on advertising in a sporting event, it didn’t exactly end well.

But let us not speak of the Genius anymore. All traces of that campaign have been hidden from our sight.

Now the baseball playoffs are here. And once again, Apple has made a very expensive media buy. This time, it’s blanketing the games with the new iPhone 5 ads.

But look. Someone else has moved into the neighborhood. Samsung showed up for the playoffs with equal force, in the form of its Galaxy S III ads. You know — the ones that make fun of the lost souls who line up to buy an iPhone, when they could just as easily have a much cooler Samsung phone.

It seems right now like Apple has a lot of prospective new products on the horizon. The 7.85-inch iPad mini. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. Updated iMacs. Yet despite the fact that all of these products have been highly rumored to debut this month in time of a busy holiday season, we’ve yet to see any of them. Now one report is suggesting a reason why: Apple’s having production problems on both the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and iPad mini.

Instapaper developer Marco Arment has announced The Magazine for Newsstand, a new publication that’s “loosely about technology, but also gives tech writers a venue to explore other topics that like-minded geeks might find interesting.” The Magazine will get four articles every two weeks, and it costs $1.99 per month to subscribe with a 7-day free trial.

SnapSeed, probably our favorite photo editor here at Cult of Mac, has been updated to (finally!) work with iOS6 and the iPhone 5

Say what you want about Rovio, that Finnish firm sure knows how to milk a good cow. It’s been nearly three years since Angry Birds made its debut on iOS, and since then we’ve seen a handful of sequels reaching numerous platforms — plus the spin-off, Bad Piggies — Angry Birds plushes and toys, costumes, books, amusement park attractions, snacks, and even an Angry Birds cartoon (coming soon).

Now Rovio is tackling… cookbooks! Announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair today, Bad Piggies’ Best Egg Recipes is a new interactive cookbook packed full of egg recipes that’s available now on the iPad.

This amazing prank sign was allegedly spotted on London’s Underground.

In the real world, as related in Walter Isaacson’s biography, the name of Apple Computers came when Steve Jobs was one one of his fruitarian diets, and was inspired to name his company after coming back from a mysterious commune in Oregon called “the Apple Orchard” because it sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

In an alternate dimension filled with psychadelic bio-horror, though, what if Steve Jobs named his company Apple because he bit into an Apple and cut his mouth on a microchip inside, after which he began to be haunted by squiggling, biomechanical creatures with lurid, prehensile appendages strung together from silicon and copper wire.

The latter is the origin of Apple Computers as conveyed in Ryan Patrick’s new music video for Miike Snow’s “Pretender,” and while it may seem all a bit surreal, behind the best surrealism is another way of looking at the truth. Our friend Mark Wilson says over at FastCo. Design that maybe the best way to summarize Jobs’s life story is “as a gifted wild child who earnestly searched life for meaning and found computers.” Weird as it is, that’s what the video to “Pretender” is about too.

Via: Fast Co. Design