Apple still has a lot of growing to do in Russia, but the good news is that the iTunes Store may finally be launching there in the coming months. The iTunes Store has not made its way to Russia after all these years mainly due to the country’s pervasive culture of copyright infringement. As part of the company’s continued rollout to new international markets, Apple is reportedly in talks with the Russian music industry to allow iTunes digital downloads. Not only that, but the price of a song on the Russian iTunes Store may be less than the traditional $0.99/track rate found in the U.S.

Multiple airlines have already announced plans to support Apple’s digital wallet service called Passbook, and now more companies are jumping on the bandwagon. Accessco, a leading provider for attraction ticketing, will start rolling out support for the Passbook iOS 6 app in the coming weeks. This means that Cedar Fair Entertainment U.S. theme parks (Cedar Point, Kings Island, etc.) and attractions like the Columbus Zoo will work with Passbook on the iPhone.

Everyone knows that the “upgrade” to OS X Mountain Lion severely reduced the battery life in Mac laptops by up to 38%. And while OS X 10.8.1 helped things some, the fix was still meager compared to the oceans of juice you comparatively got on the same machine running OS X Lion.

OS X 10.8.2, though? Much, much better. In fact, according to The Mac Observer, in the latest Build 12C35 of OS X 10.8.2, not only does the latest development version of Mountain Lion give users a bigger upgrade in battery life than OS X 10.8.0 or OS X 10.8.1, but their test system — a 2011 15-Inch MacBook Pro 2.0GHz i7 — now has more battery life than it did running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, the previous champ Mac operating system when it came to conserving juice.

In fact, while their test system lost 105.5 and 80.5 minutes of battery life compared to 10.6.8 in OS X 10.8.0 and OS X 10.8.1, respectively, it actually gained eight minutes against OS X 10.6.8 in OS X 10.8.2. Now those are some impressive results. Results I’m now off to test for myself.

Source: Mac Observer

Here’s another one of those quirky, brilliant hidden features of the iPhone’s operating system. I’m sure you’ve all muted a phone call while on the line with someone, right? What about when you’re on speaker phone? Mute makes sure that the other person can’t hear you, but you certainly can still hear them. That can be frustrating, especially when in a room with other folks, like during an interview.

Sometimes it’s just good to mute both sides of the conversation, right? Hold is the way your iPhone can do that.

For the most part, iOS’ “multitasking” does a great job of letting you get things done, and many of the apps you’d switch out to on the desktop to perform another task (mail, finding and using a photo) are accessible from the share-sheets within the iOS apps themselves.

But there’s one thing that constantly bugs me, especially as a user of Launchbar on OS X: There’s no way to make a quick note and save it without leaving the current application. But using a mixture of Twitter, iOS 6, Notification Center, and web services If This Then That (IFTTT) and Dropbox, you can roll your own.

And while the setup takes a little work, once it’s up and running it really is a helluva useful little hack.

Ever since the iPad 3’s magnet-reversal killed the ability for my Skech Porter case to wake the screen, I have been looking for an iPad case I can keep on all the time. The criteria are as follows, in no particular order:

• Slim and light.
• Functional, but not too complex.
• Very good looking.
• Magnet-enabled
• Embossed map of New York or Hong Kong on the outside.

The last of these was just a joke, but the New York Hong Kong (NYHK) cases includes it and everything else on the list. In fact, if not for one important niggle (which is the fault of the iPad 3 itself), then the NYHK could be just about the best slimline folio case I have yet tried.

I have a million ideas for great apps. I bet you do too. Here’s the problem—I couldn’t program my way out of a paper bag. I don’t think I’m alone in this quandary either. So…

Knowledge to the rescue! We’ve got a cool ebook—Turn iPhone App Ideas Into Reality With This Ebook Bundle: Learn How to Successfully Build & Launch iPhone Apps—that solves a lot of pain points for the whole “turn an idea into an app into money” problem.

At one time, deep back in the swirling mists of time, Polaroid was like the Apple of photography, not only making the best stuff but also inventing new ways to do things. Now, the brand is nothing but a label slapped onto a bunch of crap by the current owner.

But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing amazing going on in the analog instant film world. Take a look at the Impossible Project’s FPU (Film Processing Unit), an amazing gadget that marries your iPhone to real, instant analog photos.

Buying an unlocked iPhone and using a prepaid plan can save you a lot of money over two years. Over $1000 in savings actually.  T-Mobile is the only major U.S. carrier that hasn’t landed a deal for the iPhone yet, but they’re not letting that stop them from getting new iPhone customers.

This week T-Mobile is pushing their new Unlimited & Unlocked campaign to get future iPhone 5 owners to buy an unlocked iPhone and bring it over to their network where they can save $1200 over two years versus AT&T.

The always sketechy Digitimes has a new report out, and as usual, douse your taste buds with brine, because they say that a Retina Display iMac was supposed to debut this month, but has been delayed because of production problems. They also say the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro wil be out by October.

After a lot of confusion and denials from the FBI and Apple, the real source of the 1 million hacked UDIDs that Anonymous leaked last week has finally been found, and aswas theorized last week, it was just an app publisher.

Blue Toad, an app publishing company in Florida, revealed to NBC News that they’re 100 percent confident that Anonymous hacked their databases and stole the UDIDs from them.

OS X Mountain Lion comes with 35 great wallpapers pre-installed, but what if that’s not enough to satisfy your computer’s cravings for more cosmic landscapes and jaw-dropping scenery straight out of National Geographics? Some of use need more. Like, at least 43 more.

Apple actually includes 43 incredible wallpapers with a 3200×2000 resolution that are hidden inside OS X Mountain Lion. They include stuff like scenery from National Geographics, nature patterns, and cosmic photos from the Hubble telescope. Finding the wallpapers and unlocking them is actually really easy too, here’s how to do it:

Yes, Amazon just released some beautiful new Kindles with HD screens and an ecosystem that could one day potentially rival Apple’s. Not only do the new Kindles look great, but they’re super cheap too, because Amazon wants to make money when you’re using their devices, not when you buy their devices.

If you take a look at the chart above you can see how completely different Amazon is from Apple. While Amazon is content to sell products now and make profit later, Apple makes big profits off of small devices now, and keeps customers coming back with an incredible ecosystem. Which strategy do you think is best? Money talks right?

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Over the past couple of days, Apple’s been busy updating Yerba Buena and rehearsing their keynote deliveries in preparation for the iPhone 5 announcement. The iPhone 5 is a sure bet. We know it’s coming. You know it’s coming. But will Apple have any other goodies to show off at Wednesday’s keynote?

What do you think Apple will announce along side the iPhone 5? New iTunes? Apple TV update? Maybe an iWatch? We want to hear your ideas, whether they’re totally legit or completely whacky.

Click here to tell us what you think Apple will announce on Wednesday at the Cult of Mac Forums

Using mobile Safari’s private browsing mode on an iOS device is a pain, because you have to activate and deactivate via the Settings app. In fact, I’ve always found that it’s just easier to use a third-party browser. But not anymore. If you’ve got a jailbroken iOS device, installing the Privata tweak allows you to switch back and forth between Safari’s private browsing mode within Safari itself.

Itching to get a Retina Mac, but worried the 15-inch MacBook Pro is too big? Well you may not have to wait too long for the 13-inch model. According to one report, Apple’s suppliers have already begun shipping the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and refreshed iMacs ahead of their launch in the coming months.

What happens if you give ten strangers the same piece of paper to draw on at the same time? Let’s up the stakes. Let’s make that paper a blank iPad screen, and let’s give all the “artists” the anonymity of the internet. This app exists, and it’s called uDraw HD.

Acclaim’s 1999 R/C racing classic, Re-Volt, is coming to iOS this month. The title has been ported by development studio Big Bit Ltd, which is run by Nick Baynes, one of the original creators of the game, who has been teasing its release on Twitter.

Man oh man. This leaked Sony RX1 looks sweet indeed. If the rumors are to be believed, the camera is a mirrorless body with a full-frame sensor (the same sensor as the also-rumored Sony A99) and a whole bunch of manual controls. It also looks like it’ll play nice with proper, old-school 35mm lenses.

With the profusion of menu bar icons in the upper right of our Mountain Lion screens, it might be time for a change. If you’re bored with the same old Notification Center icon that everyone else who’s upgraded to Apple’s latest Mac operating system has, this tip’s for you.

When Apple announced the original iPhone back in 2007, Google’s first Android handset wasn’t too far behind. The search giant got a compelling iOS alternative out of the gate before anyone else, and it’s been a head-to-head battle between the two platforms ever since. But how was Android able to follow the iPhone so quickly?

Well, that’s fairly obvious to most. You see, Google chairman Eric Schmidt was an Apple board member when the Cupertino company was developing the iPhone, and so he got an inside look at the device before anyone else. Little did Apple know that Schmidt would use what he saw inside Apple’s headquarters to create the iPhone’s biggest competitor.

With the iPad, however, it was a different story. That was years ahead of everything else, and not even Google had a slate ready to do battle when the iPad launched in 2010. Why? Because Steve Jobs made sure Schmidt knew nothing about the iPad before its debut.

After unveiling its latest Kindle lineup last week, Amazon has updated its Kindle app for Mac OS X to introduce support for new books that employ the Kindle 8 format. It also adds OS X Lion gestures and a number of improvements.

According to Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle, Apple might walk out a celebrity during the iPhone 5 event on September 12.

Why? First of all, because Enderle thinks that so many details about the iPhone 5 have already leaked out that no one’s going to bother watching the event.

Do you wish that Spotify had a free web version like Pandora? Your wish may soon be granted.

According to multiple reports, popular music streaming service Spotify is gearing up to unleash a full web app for paid and free customers.

Remember the giant ‘Retina’ in Apple’s huge event banner for the third-gen iPad? If you thought that was a subtle hint, then get ready, cause it’s even better this time around. We showed you the colorful signage Apple put up at the Yerba Buena Center over the weekend, and it sadly looked like there were no immediate iPhone 5 hints in the banner’s design. Think again.

Believe it or not, the banner currently hanging from Yerba Buena in San Francisco points to the rumored 4-inch display for the iPhone 5.