Unfortunately, the App Store has become home to thousands of poorly designed copycat apps that try to ride the coattails of other popular titles. Such apps use a similar name, look, description, and even icon to trick customers into downloading. While Apple is known for the stringent requirements it puts in place for third-party developers, many clear ripoffs still manage to slip through somehow.

It appears as though Apple is starting to crack down on copycat apps with more force. App Store submissions that uses icons similar to other popular apps are now getting banned.

Steve Jobs famously declared a thermonuclear war on Google’s alleged iPhone copycat Android OS, but the full-on battle between the companies may be prevented before more of their lawyers have broken out of the trenches. A Reuters report this morning revealed Google’s Larry Page and Apple’s Tim Cook are planning on conducting preliminary talks regarding the companies’ IP disputes, a series of talks which may lead to a truce deal in the upcoming months.

We all have that contact or three that just can’t seem to take a hint. They keep calling and calling, and we really just need to get our work done. If you use the audible ringer on your iPhone, there’s a way to ignore that caller (along with any other folks you’d like to selectively mute) with a silent ringtone.

I like the Apple Store as much as any Apple fan, but I wouldn’t want to live and work there.

You can’t say the same thing for David Wu, though. “Call me mad. Call me crazy. But I woke up one day around three months or more ago and decided to completely renovate my home study.”

So what’d he do? He made his home office a virtual recreation of an Apple Store, not only including a replica of Apple’s distinctive Fetzer Wooden Maple desks (with working drawers), a replica Apple Store sign with built-in, Apple TV-driven LED display and even a couple shelves full of boxed Apple products.

I’ll go ahead and call David Wu crazy. Here’s to the crazy ones. Read more about how he did it at his blog. More pictures of David’s sick set-up below, but make sure to go to Wu’s personal site for the rest.

Given the number of iPad cases that arrive at my door each week for review, you might be surprised that I still buy the things. And a couple of weeks ago when I picked up a natty little felt iPad bag in a local store, I couldn’t believe the price. At just €20 (around $25), it’s a steal.

Josh Begley had a great idea on how to get people talking about the U.S. Military’s controversial use of attack drones. He created an iOS app called Drones+ that sends users a push notification every time a US drone strikes a target.

All those notification will probably get you thinking about whether drones are good or bad. The aim of Drones+ was to create a conversation using barebones information. It doesn’t contain nasty images of corpses, or a death toll meter. All the data comes from publicly available sources. It’s family friendly. But for some reason, Apple really doesn’t want iPhone owners to use it, so they’ve rejected it three times.

With the release of iOS 6, Apple will offer business users a range of new features. A few of which are VIP email filtering (already in Mountain Lion) with custom notifications, more options when declining a phone call on the iPhone, much-needed privacy options, and Apple’s new Do Not Disturb feature – which should help some mobile professionals to “switch off” after work and maybe even get a good night’s sleep.

iOS updates are generally designed to be user-friendly and easy enough that anyone can manage to install them. As with any major OS or business critical software upgrade, however, there may be unforeseen issues with iOS 6 – particularly when it comes to internal iOS apps and iOS access to enterprise systems.

An iOS 6 upgrade policy and strategy is something that every IT department should have in place before Apple releases iOS 6. For businesses that actively support user devices in the workplace through a BYOD (bring your own device) program, that upgrade strategy is even more critical.

Concept is one of the nicest implementations of the virtual corkboard/scrapbook we’ve seen. You can add photos, post-its and index-cards to various “boards,” and rearrange them at will.

It’s a 1.0 release, and as such lacks a few basic niceties (like portrait orientation) but the polish and ease of use make up for it.

When rumors hit that Apple was going to make the display of the iPhone 5 taller, but not wider, people were kind of upset that their iPhone was going to be a lot longer. However, some new images of the iPhone 5 front panel show that even though the display will be larger, the device itself won’t be that much taller than the iPhone 4S because Apple is reducing the size of the bezel around the display.

Chinese parts distributor SINOCET published these images of the new display, as well as the video at the bottom of this post, that compare the size of the iPhone 5 display with that of an iPhone 4S. 

Samsung is still fuming that they got their trash handed to them in court last week. The legal beat down they received in court was just raw and powerful and awesome, and they totally deserved it.

Samsung is understandably mad, and probably a little embarrassed and majorly vindictive, so they went out this morning and declared that if Apple even thinks about releasing an iPhone 5 with LTE they will sue them immediately, and they may have the patents to win. Maybe.

Apple’s latest desktop operating system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, launched just over a month ago, but its usage is spreading like a raging forest fire. 48 hours after its release the OS was already running on 3.2% of all Macs, but new data is showing that 10% of all Mac users are now running Mountain Lion on their machines.

Chitika has been tracking the adoption of Mountain Lion via their ad network, and says that the usage of Mountain Lion has been increasing steadily with no sign of letting up. The new OS is on track to outpace OS X Lion, which took three months to gain 14% use on all Macs.

The “bad piggies” have something diabolical planned, and whatever it is, it’s PIG, erm… BIG! They’ve started their social networking campaign and even “Haz a Facebook.” Now we’ve got a teaser video of what appears to be an incoming spin-off to the Angry Birds phenomenon. Perhaps it’s time for the pigs to finally have their day. We’re just going to have to wait and see, for now, here’s the teaser video.

A boring charger might not have the glamorous appeal of a fancy iPad case or bag, but it could make a huge difference to your life. If your life is sad, small and you’re excited about saving a few seconds every day. Kidding. LaunchPort’s inductive iPad charger actually looks pretty awesome.

The most important thing I learned while watching the Republican National Convention last night, is this: Don’t let Paul Ryan use your iPod, ever! Because he will totally make fun of your music library at the biggest political rally of the year. Even if you’re his running mate for el Presidente.

During his speech last night, Paul Ryan mentioned how he and Governor Mitt Romney are a full generation apart. To expound on their age difference, Ryan took a few digs at Romney’s iPod, while boasting about his own. Check out the video below to hear Ryan’s diss (it starts at the 12:54 mark)

You guys carry some odd things aro und in your gadget bags. Like, rubiks cubes, otoscopes, or electronic dog tags? Hey, whatever works for you, that’s fine. Who are we to judge. Even though the Cult of Mac Show Us What’s In Your Gadget Bag sweepstakes is over, we couldn’t get over how fascinating a lot of the gadget bags were. Each told a unique story about that individual, which was really interesting to see. So to celebrate you guys, we compiled this gallery of the 10 most interesting gadget bags we saw last week.

The success of the iPhone hasn’t been a huge money maker for just Apple. Component manufacturers make a killing off it as well because it means they’re able to sell millions of units for each iPhone launch as Apple gogbles up all available supply.

While Apple’s relationship with Samsung as a components supplier has become strained, other companies are ready to join the fight and invest some serious moolah to help Apple and secure better contracts themselves. Sharp, seeing a big opportunity, says they may invest $1 Billion into their plant to boost capacity for Apple’s iPhone displays.

Aleratec’s Charge-Glo dock cable has a very simple yet very neat gimmick: like the MagSafe charger you have for your MacBook, it sports an LED in the plug, and this LED changes color to show charging status. No more tapping at your iPhone’s home button to see if it has done charging.

Steve Jobs never got the chance to build the car of his dreams, but he has still had a huge affect on the car industry. Why? Because he made white cool. Before Apple began making white computers and accessories, white was a color only associated with boring products like refrigerators — and nobody dreamed of owning a white car. Now it’s the most popular car color in America.

If you think it’s just Apple’s stolen intellectual property that Samsung is in the habit of using, you might want to think again. Kun Hee Lee, Samsung’s billionaire CEO,  drives himself around in one of the world’s rarest Ferraris, the 330 LMB… a $15 million automobile that is, in all likelihood, stolen goods.

I’ve lost count of the number of iPhone 5 parts that have leaked out of Apple’s Chinese factories. But one thing that’s been notably absent from those leaks is the device’s new processor. We’ve questioned whether it will use the same A5X chip that features in the new iPad, or whether it will get an all-new A6 processor.

Thanks to the latest leak, that has become a little clearer.

Just when you thought it was safe to enter a camera store without being assaulted by megapixel madness and other “feeds and speeds,” Samsung goes and adds a new tech race to the game. Processor speed. Its impressive new camera, the Galaxy Camera, comes with a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, and looks like the future of compact camera design, packing an Android 4.1 Jellybean computer.

Apple’s strict approach to iOS software means that spyware very rarely makes its way onto our iPhones or iPads. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t at risk. A piece of mobile spyware called FinFisher, developed by U.K.-based Gamma Group, is capable of making its way onto your iPhone and recording your every move without you knowing it.

The software can secretly turn on your handset’s microphone to listen to your conversations, it can track your location, and even monitor your emails, text messages, and calls.

In a laughable post over at LawPundit, Andis Kaulins makes an argument that Apple’s landmark $1 billion win against Samsung for patent infringement is at least partially bogus.

Why? Because Apple’s patent for bounce-back scrolling isn’t an original idea, but was, in fact, stolen from Pong, a game first released back in 1972. There are just a few problems with this idea…

Sony has gotten on the connected, app-enabled camera bandwagon at last with the NEX-5R, an updated 5N which adds Wi-Fi, “apps,” an very sweet new AF system and a couple of extra buttons. Sony’s NEX series is already smoking hot, and these new features might just bring the fire brigade a-runnin'.

You may have noticed that in addition to all the things Mountain Lion adds to OS X, its also taken a few away. If you run a web server on your Mac, or develop websites on your local machine, you’ll also have noticed that the option to turn the local web server on or off is missing from System Preferences. Apache, the industry-standard web server that has come bundled with OS X since the first version, is still there, but there is no longer a way to enable the actual server.

Until now, that is, with a third party app called VirtualHostX.