Closing its fourth round of funding, the mobile credit card processing company just raised $200 million, making it worth a staggeringly large $3.25 billion. The company, built by Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame, allows anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or other compatible mobile device, to accept credit cards. Square is widely seen as the industry leader in the mobile payment-with-a-dongle space (I just made that term up), as evidenced by other dongles released shortly thereafter by the likes of PayPal and Intuit, among others.

In what may come as no surprise, the COO of Square, Keith Rabois, is on record at All Things D, saying that the transition from current registers and point of sale devices (like ATM card-swiping devices) to iPads or other tablets will happen within the next year and a half. Square’s partnership with Starbucks is only the first of the steps being taken actively by Square to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mint.com, the slick and extremely useful financial tracking website, also has iOS and OS X apps to natively keep an eye on your finances. The Mac app came out in early July of this year, and was updated to version 2.0 at the end of August. Today, however, it has gone from being a free app to asking for a cool $4.99.

Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 to the world this past Wednesday. Besides the privileged few, most third-party case/accessory makers saw the iPhone 5’s final design at the same time as everyone else: during Apple’s media event. Apple’s thick veil of secrecy hasn’t kept case manufacturers from getting ready, however. Rumors and part leaks predicted the iPhone 5’s look and feature set pretty precisely during the months leading up to last week’s unveiling.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 started Friday, September 14th, and the new smartphone goes on sale officially this Friday, September 21st. If you’re in the market for iPhone 5 cases, then companies like Incase, Otterbox, Incipio, and others have you covered.

Apple stock has been climbing rapidly towards $700 per share since the iPhone 5 was announced Wednesday, September 12th. Now, less than a week after the announcement from Apple, AAPL has hit $700 in after hours trading, marking an all-time high.

Despite iPhone 5 naysayers, Apple remains the most valuable company in the world by a large margin.

When the iPhone originally launched in 2007, AT&T was shocked by how much data users consumed and it crippled their networks. Once 3G was added to the iPhone, data consumption predictably increased, but now that we’re on the cusps of seeing an LTE iPhone 5, one analyst firm is predicting the iPhone 5 will double data consumption.

Reports have hit the web today that Apple’s iMessage service is experiencing a widespread outage. The problem seems to be affecting all sorts of different iOS users, even though Apple’s iCloud status page shows no problems. The outage seems to be carrier independent as a number of users have reported problems on both AT&T and Verizon.

One of the more useful features of modern browsing, the AutoFill function started on the desktop, then made its way to the iPhone and iPad a while ago. It lets your iOS device hold all the form data, populating the oft-repeated fields with your personal info like your name and address. That way, you don’t have to type it all in all the time, which is brilliant on a mobile device with a small touch-keyboard.

When you share a device, like I do with my iPad at home, you may not want to share this personal data. Until a proper multi-user experience comes to iOS, the best way to get around this is to clear out your personal info, and then turn off AutoFill. Here’s how.

Fabric Horse, the Philadelphia-based utility-wear company, has gotten around to making this sweet waxed-canvas iPad case.

Jony Ive is always so damn beautiful in every Apple product video. His gorgeous british accent just washes over my eardrums and magically hypnotizes me into buying whatever product Apple is pushing. Like, dude could sell me a mason jar of horse fat mixed with dead butterflies and pig’s blood and as long as Apple made a pretty video explaining why they made it, then I would be all about it.

To prove that point, Buzzfeed FWD mashed up Jony’s latest video with a video on how nasty, filthy, disgusting hot dogs are made. It’s sick and lovely, and pretty much proves that Apple could sell you anything they want and it would sound awesome. Do you agree? Let us hear your thoughts about Apple’s video sorcery in the comments below.

Source: FWD

So, you’re ready to buy the iPhone 5. You’ve waited for months, you have the contract eligibility to upgrade. Hell, you can even switch if you want to. But which carrier is best for you?

Having Apple’s latest and greatest iPhone is worthless if you get yourself locked into a two-year contract with a carrier that doesn’t even provide you with high-quality cellular service at your house or work. Luckily, there’s an essential app and other tools you can use to check who provides the best service for your iPhone.

Canon's other new camera today is the G15, successor to the G12 and flagship compact in the Canon range. The big changes are the lens, which retains its zoom range but gets a faster maximum aperture of ƒ1.8, and the rear LCD panel, which no longer flips out but now sports a higher 920,000 resolution.

Every promotional video Apple releases is oozing with ridiculous hype and self-importance. They’re beautiful and annoying at the same time. And as soon as Apple announces a new product you can be sure that 137 different parody videos will hit  YouTube the very next day

Most of the Apple parody videos rehash the same old jokes. Are they still funny anymore? I don’t know. But the guys at JLE have been making Apple parody videos for years now and just released their banned iPhone 5 promo video that is full of laughs. Check it out.

The iPhone 5 is already Apple’s most successful iPhone ever, in terms of first day sales figures. Apple received 2 million iPhone 5 pre-orders, which is double the number they received for the iPhone 4S.

GigaOM put together a quick chart to show just how stunning the iPhone 5 pre-orders have been. The iPhone 4S was the most successful smartphone ever, and the iPhone 5 is on pace to absolutely blow the iPhone 4S numbers away.

Source: GigaOM

One of iCloud’s biggest problems comes from its iOS origins: There’s no easy way to open, say, a TextEdit document in another app for viewing and editing. To do this, you need to either open the source app (TextEdit, in this case), use the iCloud document picker and then drag the file to the target app, or you need to go digging around inside your (hidden) Library folder to find the local copies of your iCloud documents.

The first is a real pain. The second is — as anyone who has ever dug around inside an iPhoto bundle will tell you — a really, really bad idea. Luckily, for LaunchBar users, the answer is (literally) a few taps away.

Olympus joins the Photokina news bukake-fest with two new PEN cameras and a smart compact.

Olympus is entering Photokina week with three new cameras: the E-PM2 and E-PL5 for its PEN Micro Four Thirds lineup, and the X-Z2 as a flagship compact camera.

Both PEN cameras feature a 16.1MP CMOS sensor, a max ISO of 25,600, in-body image stabilization, a 3-inch touchscreen, touch shooting, 8fps continuous shooting, photo filters, RAW files with in-camera editing, and 1080i HD video recording.

Rather than build their own photo editing and sharing app from the ground up, Google has decided to play catch-up with Facebook and Instagram by acquiring Nik Software, the developer behind the popular iOS photography app Snapseed.

Still kind of pissed off that you’re going to have to buy a $29 Lightning adapter so all your accessories can play nice with your iPhone 5? Apple’s not even going to include a free adapter with your iPhone 5, just so you’ll have to pay them more money for more adapters, or so you’ll just switch to AirPlay enabled accessories.

Whatever the reason, the price on Apple’s Lightning adapters is terrible, but thankfully the knock-offs have  arrived before the launch of the iPhone 5 and some of them will even save you $20 per adapter, so you can buy as many as you want for all your toys.

If you’re expecting a new iPhone 5 on Friday, and you’re buying it unlocked directly from Apple, you’re going to need a nano-SIM to go with it. Obtaining one is easy if your carrier is one supporting the new device, because you can just call them up and request one. But what if you’re already stuck in a contract with a carrier that doesn’t provide nano-SIMs yet?

Fortunately for you, scissors, some sandpaper, and a pair of steady hands will allow you to cut down your existing SIM or micro-SIM into a nano-SIM.

Complaining about Apple gypping you by changing its terrible, bulky, hard-to-use 30-pin dock connector for the sleek, double-sided Lightning connector? Then take a look at the alternative from Samsung. One of the few things it didn't copy from Apple was the giant connector, but that's not to say it got anything right.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 last week, the company promised that its custom A6 chip deliver performance twice as fast as its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. But according to the handset’s first benchmarks, this isn’t just the fastest iPhone yet — it’s also one of the most powerful smartphones money can buy.

Oh, it is soooo on. Right after the announcement of Nikon's (relatively) cheap and small full-frame 24MP D600, comes Canon's reply: the 6D, a (you guessed it) small and budget-minded full-frame SLR. And it adds Wi-Fi and GPS.

There was a time when waiting in line for Apple’s latest iPhone meant you were a diehard fan who could think of nothing worse than not getting the device on launch day. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case: Lines have already started forming for the iPhone 5 outside of Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, but the first two people in the queue are not diehard Apple fans.

Instead, they are there simply to promote their own products or services.

Remember Samsung’s dishonest, offensive “It Doesn’t Take A Genius” ad that, as my colleague Alex heath wonderfully put it, tried to proclaim the Samsung Galaxy SIII to be a better handset than the iPhone 5 by making its “contrived spec list” longer?

Well, two can play at that game. If you’re going to selectively leave features off of one phone to make yours look like you can do more at it, well, we’re only a quick Photoshop away from turning the tables.

As a final note, I love what this ad says about Samsung. They still just don’t get it: they’re still playing the spec game when Apple has built its billions upon the true fact that no one gives a shit about specs anymore. The proof is in the experience.

Source: Reddit

FitBit, my favorite fitness and activity-tracking widget, has at last gotten a brother and sister, putting an end to that awkward only-child behavior which surely would have developed otherwise (animal torture; computer programming; you know the drill).

The newborns have been named FitBit Zip and FitBit One, the baby and the smart overachiever of the family, respectively. The One can also sync direct with your iPhone.

In OS X Mountain Lion, you can set a Calendar notification for a repeating event on your iPhone, then get that notification on your Mac. Conversely, you can set a Calendar event on your Mac and get it when you’re out and about with your iPhone. Pretty slick, right? It’s all a part of Apple’s new iCloud integration, and it works pretty well.

But what if you really don’t want to be notified of a certain type of event when you’re on your Mac? In OS X Mountain Lion, you now have a few more options for notifications that come from Calendar.