We’ve seen lots of leaked parts for the upcoming iPhone, and even some cases for the rumored iPad Mini, but not a peep has been heard about a redesigned iPod Touch, until now. Pictures of new cases claiming to be designed for the new iPod Touch hit the web this morning, and they reveal that the fifth-generation might undergo some serious design changes when it hits the market later this year.

The cases show that the body of the 5th-gen iPod Touch might be less tapered than the current version, and it also features a mysterious hole on the back of the device that we’re not sure about.

Apple’s critics generously assign a variety of motives to Apple for filing lawsuits.

Apple sues because it wants to control the market, overcharge for its products, exclude competitors from the market or punish competitors for daring to not think different. It’s all part of Apple’s “quest for global tech domination.

But these aren’t actual motives. These are appeals to emotion. They’re legitimate perspectives, but expressed to negatively encapsulate spectacularly complex technical, legal and ethical issues into sound bites that make you want to agree with the author that Apple is bad and wrong.

Apple has only one motive for patent lawsuits, and I’m going to tell you what that motive is.

Headlining this week’s must-have iOS games roundup is an awesome new platformer called Mikey Shorts, which offers its own unique style of play focused on speed. We also have The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which makes its App Store debut for the second time; VOTE!!!, the latest title from Infinity Blade creators Chair Entertainment; and a great space-age building game from Gameloft.

Continue reading

Apple’s victory in its patent trial against Samsung is already a few hours old but the shock of the damage tally is still hard to shake off. The final figure of $1,049,393,540.00 is a staggering rebuke of Samsung’s design and manufacturing process and may force the company toward more original ideas.

The completed jury verdict form, released late Friday night and attached below, reveals the Korean company maybe never really had a chance to win the case.

Discovering great headphones from a company that specializes in making bags was surprisng at first, when we reviewed Incase’s Sonic headphones late last year. A month later we were less stunned when we grunted in approval at their Capsule in-ear ‘phones during our budget(ish) canalphone shootout.

This time around we played with a new denim-clad version of the on-the-ear Incase Reflex headphones ($80) — which sit between the $150 over-the-ear Sonic and the canalphone Capsules — and came away with the impression that the Reflex may very well be the best bang-for-buck of the bunch.

Apple has won a massive damages sum of nearly $1.05 billion in the patent trial against Samsung and the reaction from the technology community has been vast and swift.

In an email immediately following the verdict, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles Golvin told us the main takeaway from the verdict is the focus on innovation. Companies will now be forced to create legitimately different products, or at least engineer some without extravagantly similar features:

The jury particularly vindicates Apple’s software patents and their decision has implications not just for Samsung, but also for Google, other Android device makers like LG, HTC, and Motorola, but also potentially for Microsoft who employs features such as pinch to zoom, bounce on scroll, etc. These competitors are now forced to go back to the drawing board and come up with substantively different designs — or seek settlement terms with Apple. Since many of these controls are now built into the expectations of customers in how they work their phones, those are substantive challenges.

Gartner analyst and VP of Mobile Research Van Baker agrees the redesign of products in the long term is an issue but that it won’t affect any products anytime soon.

This is a clear win for Apple but it will have little impact on the market in the near term as it is highly likely that there will be an appeal so we will have to repeat the process. If sustained it has the potential to force Samsung to redesign a number of products and it will apply significant pressure on all smartphone and tablet makers to avoid trying to emulate the Apple designs as they bring new products to market.

Earlier, the two principals in the case immediately followed the shocking judgement with their own statements.

In a surprisingly quick judgement, the jury in the Apple-Samsung trial found Samsung infringed several of Apple’s patents and awarded the Cupertino company more than $1 Billion in damages.

Here are the decisions:

The Apple-Samsung Trial has reached its conclusion. A few minutes ago, we received word the jury has completed the massive verdict form and are ready to announce the verdict.

We’ll keep you up to date as it happens. Check back here.

It appears Apple’s arrogance is getting in the way of protecting its users from a long standing SMS exploit that could allow potential hackers to spoof a reply-to number, causing the recipient to think he/she is replying to a legitimate contact, when in reality, their information is being sent to the hackers designated address. As you can imagine, this is quite troublesome, yet Apple has brushed it away despite numerous pleas made by a well known iOS hacker (pod2g):

Let’s be honest: you think you’re an Instagram aficionado. You know the rule of thirds. You know how to use tilt-shift to perfectly accentuate that leaf. Your shots of coffee shops balance lights and darks perfectly. You can capture the magic of a beautiful sunset unlike any other (X-pro II, am I right?).

To get to the next level of your Instagramming career, you need to start getting your photos out there for the world to see. If the popular page won’t give you love, consider slapping a Creative Commons license on your pics.

The jury in the Apple-Samsung trial continues its deliberations for a third straight day and there are rumors it will reach a quick verdict resolution before the weekend. But you can forget it. The official jury verdict form is forcing the jurors to consider 773 individual infringement claims at issue.

Microsoft recently redesigned its company logo for the first time in 25 years. The design is dead simple: four boxes in a square that pays homage to the original logo.

What would it look like if Microsoft redesigned Apple’s logo? The above concept comes from L8. Logos have also been made for brands like Starbucks, Firefox, Twitter, Pepsi, and Google.

I think it’s safe to say that Apple’s own logo wins.

Source: L8

Thanks: Andrew

VMWare announced the newest version of VMWare Fusion, its Mac virtualization product, this week. In doing so it also launched its first business or enterprise version of the popular tool for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac workstations. Dubbed Fusion Professional, the new solution has a range of features that are likely to appeal to IT professionals in both business and education.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 launch event happened in New York City last night, and celebs like Sports Illustrated covergirl Kate Upton were in attendance. Given Samsung’s high-profile legal feud with Apple, it’s particularly unfortunate that a shot of the beautiful Upton depicts her sitting next to her white iPhone.

You’d think that Samsung would have the due diligence to at least give its paid guests appropriately-branded phones. Oh well, at least it gave us an excuse to post it on Cult of Mac.

Here’s another one of those “so simple it hurts” tips that we find from time to time, leaving us scratching our heads, wondering why we didn’t figure it out sooner.

When you’re browsing the web, whether you’re on a computer or your iPhone, you don’t always want to open links in the window you’re browsing in. Neither do you always want to open them in a new tab in the foreground. Sometimes, especially when you’re doing internet research, you want to open tabs in the background. On the Mac, it’s simply a matter of Command clicking a link in your current browser, or setting a preference or two for your favorite web apps.

You can do this on iOS, too, with a simple tap in Settings. Here’s how.

Now that OS X 10.8.1 is here, has battery life really improved, as rumored? The Mac Observer did some tests, and the answer is… sometimes?

Evernote has become an indispensible tool for people all over the world. The incredibly versatile “save anything” tool is used at home, school, and work. One nagging issue has been that although Evernote is an amazing productivity tool and has tons of business applications, it has never been good at sharing on a large scale – like the level of sharing that a business of a few dozen people or a few thousand people needs.

All that is about to change. The company announced a new workplace edition of Evernote for business customers.

Since I’m so excited, we’re going to front load this review: if you don’t want to sign a contract to have an iPhone, Straight Talk is the best prepaid carrier you can possibly choose in the United States. And even if you have no problem with signing a two year contract with one of the big three, you should seriously consider Straight Talk: you get the same quality of coverage and network speeds as if you signed up with AT&T for hundreds of dollars less.

Got that? Now let me elaborate.

Farewell Nikon D700. You were one of the best digital cameras ever made.

The D700, the full-frame DSLR Nikon launched way back in 2008, has just had its life support switched off, and the doctors have pulled the sheet over its face and closed the curtain around its bed.

Four years isn’t bad in today’s world, and those wanting a non-top-end full-frame body can buy the D800, but that’s more about video and show-off (36MP) pixel-counts. Here, I’ll say it: the D700 was maybe the best photographers’ camera ever.

This image claiming that Microsoft ripped off its new logo from Apple is pretty funny, but is its creator, Andrew Brett Watson, really being fair? Check it out in full below:

Tim Cook has been very busy running Apple the past 12 months. There have been a lot of changes and new products that have helped make Apple the most valuable company ever. There have also been a lot of controversies, and headaches along the way. The road hasn’t been all smooth sailing, but we think Tim has done a great job in his first year as CEO of Apple.

Here are eight things that have kept Tim busy in his first year as CEO:

Last week I was in the tobacconist buying some Cuban cigars, and the girl in front of me was tattooed with an Apple logo. I got a crappy picture, but I snapped it out of horror rather than admiration.

Still, a tat is one thing. An Asymco T-Shirt, featuring a graph of, say, Apple’s increasing stock price, is another. These things are so dorky that they come out the other side being awesome.

I love these WordPress theme deals. Why? Well, because I’m a theme junkie. Even if I don’t get a particular theme deal, I love knowing about and checking out the various WP theme foundries that are out there. Always good to have a few smaller foundries in your back pocket, IMHO.

Today we have a deal for Themify. Nice themes. Good styles. Nice layouts. And my favorite option: they support Child theming. Why is this important? Well, let me tell you…

Bluetooth speakers? Count me in. I love the things: portable, great-sounding, remote control right there on the speaker, and wireless. But Bluetooth headphones? Aren’t they bulky, and with crappy battery life? Not, apparently, the new Satchi BT Lite headphones, which – as the name suggests – are pretty “lite.”

Samsung may have been treated unfairly when the trial’s magistrate Judge refused to admit new evidence into the case late in the game despite the fact it had allowed Apple to order an earlier sanction against it, a prominent law blog is reporting.

A post in Groklaw.net says Samsung may build a case around the issue of unfairness in an attempt to throw out the verdict if the jury goes against it.