Have you ever heard of the Rule of Threes? It’s a guideline used widely in writing and communicating that dictates your message is clearer and more effective when you can convey it in three parts.

For example, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that every American had an inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Drop any one of those, and the sentence is somehow less effective.

You know who else was a big fan of the Rule of Threes? Steve Jobs.

The makers of popular Mail.app replacement Sparrow have updated the app with Retina graphics for the 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Sparrow 1.6.2 can be downloaded as a free update for existing users.

Developers can also test Sparrow on OS X Mountain Lion, and the app will be ready for prime time when Mountain Lion becomes available to the public later this month.

The new Retina MacBook Pro is the most pixel-loaded Apple device yet, with more than five million of the little blighters spread over 220 pixels per inch. That’s a lot of tiny dots, but believe it or not, it only translates to a mere five megapixels. And since the iPhone has had a 5 megapixel camera since 2010, pictures taken on an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S should be able to take full advantage of the Retina MacBook Pro’s 2880 x 1800 resolution display.

So why is it that photos taken with an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S look so crappy on a Retina MacBook Pro? That’s what Instapaper developer Marco Arment wants to know, and so do we. We have a theory though.

Michael Jurewitz has served as the face of Apple to the third party developer community for the past seven years. Frequently seen at Tech Talks around the world and at WWDC each year meeting with developers, Jurewitz today announced that he has left Apple to become a partner at Black Pixel, the company behind apps like NetNewsWire and Kaleidoscope.

If you have any interest in shooting black and white photos with your iPhone, you probably already have Hueless, the excellent colorblind photo app. If not, now is a great time to get it, as the latest 1.1 update brings some neat new features.

The Flea 3 is a weird little camera: at first glance it appears to be a 4K webcam, which would mean the ultimate in chats with mom should your internet connections (and Skype) support it.

I reality though, it’s a dirt-cheap way to start a 4K movie rig. I’ll emphasize the “start” in that, though, as you’re going to need a lot more gear than the Flea 3 itself.

When Apple announced the terms for Newsstand and digital subscriptions, many publications felt that the company was being too hard on them. Apple’s requirement that publishers offer the same deals through the App Store that they do elsewhere while still taking its typical 30% cut of the income ruffled a lot of feathers in the publishing world. While there was a lot of angry discussion about the policy when Apple announced and implemented it, many publications decided to accept the policy – at least initially.

Since then, however, a handful of publications have decided to abandon their presence on iOS devices. Some are planning to build a web app as their only iOS or mobile presence. Others are looking to create deals with various news aggregators. Regardless of their plans, Apple’s terms are one of the key reasons that publishers are getting out of the App Store.

In the last couple of days, Apple killed off MobileMe and is now warning users its killing off another cloud service: the iWork.com Beta, a service Apple launched in 2009 to allow for online editing, downloading and collaborating on documents.

While Steve Jobs famously liked to take credit for others’ ideas, he also gave a lot of credit to the amazing people he employed at Apple who enabled the company to create all of the incredible products it has released over the years. In many interviews, Jobs praised their creativity, passion, and drive, and their determination to build the best product they could build.

Ron Avitzur is a great example of that. While working at Apple in August 1993, the graphic calculator program he and his team were working on was shelved. Avitzur declined the opportunity to transfer to another project, but he continued to turn up to work each day, sneaking into the Apple camp in Cupertino until his project was complete.

It’s been just three weeks since Apple issued refreshes to its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and already they’re on sale at Best Buy, with up to $140 off the MSRP. That means you can pick up the base model MacBook Pro with Retina display — with a 2.3GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD — for $2,089.

Almost every major company has plans to develop a range of iOS apps (if they haven’t created some already). In fact, one of the reasons that enterprise app stores are becoming as popular as they are in business is that they fulfill two critical needs. One of those is to easily distribute internal apps to staff members. (The other is to point users to suggested or required apps from Apple’s App Store.)

One thing that every company developing an internal app needs to keep in mind is that users are becoming more tech savvy and comfortable selecting and using iOS apps. That can be a good thing for the whole enterprise app store concept. It let’s users choose and manage their selection of apps on their own without help from IT.

It also means that most iOS users are sophisticated enough to know when an app is poorly designed. That places an extra burden on anyone developing iOS apps, particularly if there are equivalent public apps that users can install as partial or complete replacements for a poorly built internal app.

You know your product is successful when somebody starts selling accessories for it. But what about when people start selling accessories for accessories, which work together with the original product? This happens: the New iPad Credit Card Dock, a perspex frame which holds both and iPad and a Square credit card reader.

Dateline: Instagram website updated to allow comments and likes. The system goes on-line in July 2012. Mobile requirements are removed from the service.

Instagram begins to grow at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, July 29th. In a panic, Facebook tries to pull the plug.

Apple’s latest iPhones take some pretty incredible images during the day, but it’s a different story when the sun goes down. Despite its LED flash, the iPhone’s performance in low-light still needs significant improvement. But if you’ve already abandoned a dedicated point-and-shoot, and you were hoping to snap some images at the firework display this July 4, here are some tips for taking great firework photos on your iPhone.

This photo, from a “leaked Microsoft Research presentation,” shows a one-thumbed soft keyboard design for Windows 8. And – if you’ll excuse the pun – it certainly looks handy. It also looks dead fugly, which is why we’ll never see anything like it on the iPhone, despite the rumors of growing screens in the iPhone 5.

In an effort to create the thinnest, lightest MacBook Pro it has ever released, Apple did away with a number of features that MacBook Pro users have become accustomed to, including the Kensington security lock. That means, of course, that you can no longer secure your $2,800 notebook to a table in Starbucks, and that it could easily be stolen from right under your nose the second you get up to order another cappuccino.

But Maclocks has a solution: the world’s first MacBook Pro security case and lock.

Here’s the typical course of a couple of world-changing new technologies:

Printing press. Steve Guttenberg created the moveable type press back in around 1400, shortly after the invention of beatboxing. At first it disrupted the monks' monopoly illuminated manuscripts (books with built-in reading lights), then came the pulp paperback, then comic books, and then people started typing letters to prison inmates.

Postcard. This innocent vacation staple was introduced in the 1800s. It’s a letter without an envelope which can be read by anybody as it travels from sender to recipient, and in this way was the inspiration for the inventors of email. Later, it was used to mail contest answers into Saturday morning TV shows, and in England a smutty variety emerged which is still available today. Then people started sending postcards to prison inmates.

Today, we have the iPhone. I’ll skip the last five years of its history and arrive at today. Now, people can send paper postcards to prison inmates using their iPhones.

GarageBand for OS X changed the way mere mortals create great music on their Macs. The latest version, GarageBand ’11, makes things even easier with Magic GarageBand. Essentially, this will guide you through the steps needed to create a great music track for video projects, ringtones, or just your own music to share with family and friends. Here’s how to begin your journey.

If you’re planning to upgrade the flash storage in your 2010 or 2011 MacBook Air, don’t just discard your old module or let it go for pennies on eBay. With the Aurora Envoy enclosure from Other World Computing, you can turn that old flash storage into an external drive that’s designed to match your MacBook Air perfectly.

As Apple’s devices become increasingly popular, so do its retail stores. It’s almost impossible to walk into one and see a Genius without an appointment, and even with an appointment you can almost guarantee there will be a lengthy wait. But Apple hopes to improve this with a new Genius Bar layout that increases capacity from 7 to 12 customers, simply by turning a table 90° and adding a few extra stools.

Marking the end of the longstanding trademark dispute over the name “iPad,” Apple has agreed in Chinese court to pay a $60 million settlement fee to Proview Technology. Once the money is transferred, the settlement will officially end the court battles between the two companies.

Proview originally accused Apple of stealing its iPad trademark in February 2012 on Chinese soil, and the legal dispute has continued since. The U.S. California court ruled against Proview’s accusation earlier this year, and Guangdong High People’s Court reports that Apple and Proview have reached an agreement that Apple will shell out a cool $60 million to close the case once and for all.

If a picture tells a thousand words, what does an annotated screencast tell?

How many times have you picked up a new app and just couldn’t figure something out and wished that the developers could just show you how it works? Have you ever needed to explain a multi-step process (like Facebook security settings) and just thought: “If I could just show you how to do this…”? Then you understand why screencasts are powerful tools for teaching, explaining, and helping. This, of course, is where Voila comes in…easy screencasting and now at an awesome price.

Apple’s new Podcasts app, with its skeuomorphic tape reels and beautiful interface, is an absolutely brilliant way to discover, manage, and listen to podcasts. And on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you how Apple’s new gem will finally bring podcast entertainment out of the shadows and into the hands of the masses.

And then, did you know Google just released their beloved Chrome browser for iOS? We’ll tell you what we think and if it’s going to give Safari a run for its money.

All that and our answers to your Twitter questions on an all-new CultCast! Subscribe now on your shiny new Podcasts app, then catch the show notes after the jump!

The guys at VideoLAN have updated their hugely popular VLC media player app with a host of improvements and Retina graphics for the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. VLC has been download over 1 billion times across Mac, Windows, and Linux computers, and version 2.0.2 is out now and available for free.

As a formidable QuickTime replacement, the latest VLC media player improves video playback, adds more video output options, includes multiple bug fixes, and more for Mac users.

Apple has been warning users about the imminent death of MobileMe since last year, and July 1st 2012 marks the day MobileMe shuts down for good. MobileMe’s iDisk and Gallery features have also been axed in favor of Apple’s newer iCloud offerings.

The good news is that MobileMe users still have the chance to retrieve and migrate their data to iCloud. Apple has made it easy to make the transition, and files can be saved directly from existing MobileMe Galleries and iDisks before it’s too late.