Now that Microsoft has unveiled the pricing and licensing models for Windows Server 2012, it’s easy to see why Apple’s focus on the small business market has been a genius move. Apple has been positioning its server platform as a small business solution for a while and Mountain Lion Server is the premier example of this focus.

Mountain Lion Server provides all the core needs for a small or mid-size firm – file sharing, email and messaging, shared contacts and calendars, and collaborative tools – for both Mac and Windows users. It also provides Mac deployment and update services as well as Mac and iOS device management capabilities. All of that is insanely affordable at just $31.98 ($19.99 to buy Mountain Lion, if needed, and then $19.99 for Mountain Lion Server).

By contrast, Microsoft’s so-called streamlining licensing for Windows Server 2012 lists a Windows Server Essentials Edition, which is the new equivalent of Windows Small Business Server, as starting at $425 with serious limitations.

Italian designer Federico Ciccarese is well known throughout the blogosphere for his Apple product concepts. Chances are that you’ve seen his gorgeous iPad Mini and iPhone 5 concept designs in recent months.

Ciccarese has released a futuristic iPhone concept that takes a very different approach to wearable technology. Kinda creepy, right?

Do you use OmniFocus on your iPhone? Do you use Launch Center Pro? Then you need to watch the above screencast, put together by Michael Schechter of A Better Mess. It uses the latter to create shortcuts and snippets of text to enter into the former, and makes the whole thing way, way faster.

U.K. carrier O2 decided to survey its users to determine which devices iPhones or other smartphones commonly replace in the lives of its customers. The most commonly replaced device turned out to be one of the more low-tech devices in daily life – the alarm clock.

54% of O2’s iPhone and smartphone customers have relegated their alarm clocks to the dustbin of history.

The second most commonly replaced device was also a time-keeping device: the watch.

OK. You spent $100 on your iPhone 4 (plus the invisible $1 trillion your contract will extract from you over the next 24 months). What do you do next? How about dropping $160 on an aluminum bumper case? Thanks to the fine folks at ElementCase, you can do just that with the Viper Pro Stealth 2.

Well, here’s a good idea that’s been a long time coming: AT&T is about to launch a new service that will make it easy for you to report and block your iPhone or iPad’s service if it has been stolen.

Although Apple quietly fixed the problem on their end that led to numerous corrupt app updates being sent out to customers, the after effects continued to plague app developers who had been bitten by the bug in the form of one-star App Store reviews from outraged customers. Now Apple’s done the right thing, and obscured these one-star reviews from influencing afflicted apps’ ratings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YP5goKA4dQ

Blind? Then you’re most likely reading this post on an iOS device, because no other platform has quite the same great level of accessibility options built-in. But that still doesn’t help you when you want to write (unless using Voiceover to find the individual keys is your thing). But I bring good news! Fleksy is a new app which takes predictive text to a ridiculous new level.

Steve Jobs’s family home in Palo Alto, where he lived with his wife Laurene Powell and their children, is currently undergoing a major renovation project that has forced the family to vacate the property. It’s unclear exactly what modifications are being made, but it is believed that the roof will be replaced and that there will be changes to the roofline.

If you’re waiting for Apple to add wireless charging to the iPhone, you could be waiting some time. We’ve been hearing rumors of its introduction for a number of years now, but five generations in, it’s yet to arrive. If you’re a skilled solderer, however, you could always add wireless charging to your iPhone yourself.

That’s what Tanveer did. He took apart a wireless charging case for the iPhone and installed its components into the iPhone 4S. Now all he has to do to charge it is place it down on a USB charging mat.

Led by the iPad, tablet sales are now expected to overtake laptop sales within four years. Given how disruptive the iPad has already been to many industries, it’s almost impossible to read reports like that without wondering which industries the iPad will topple or transform over the next five to ten years.

A new Morgan Stanley report identifies some of the likely winners and losers in an iPad and tablet dominated world. The industries expected to succeed include a couple of surprises – at first glance.

Everyone wants the latest hot Apple product, even gangs of masked thieves carrying deadly assault rifles.

U.K. Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) chairman Andy Payne has revealed that Activision’s new studio in Leeds is working to bring a new Call of Duty game to iOS. The hugely successful first-person shooter already has its name in the App Store, but the existing titles only provide access to the game’s “Zombies” element.

As usual, Lonelysandwich (aka. Adam Lisagor)’s video is hilarious and makes you want to buy the product right away (remember the Jambox?). Checkmark is a soon-to-be-released iPhone app which makes setting (and forgetting – for now) location-based reminders easy, and effective.

Sick of forgetting to pick up that [insert household item here] every damn time you visit the grocery store? You need Checkmark.

GarageBand is not only a full featured recording studio, a highly capable MIDI synth station, an electronica musician’s dream, or a place to record full songs without a day of music lessons. It’s also fantastic software for podcasting. GarageBand makes creating a podcast easy and fun.

Back in the heady days of the early 2000s, I recorded and distributed a podcast of my own, called The ANC Podcast. It was a short internet radio show that focused on local music in Anchorage, Ak, where I had recently relocated to. I spent some time working on the craft of creating a podcast, and let me tell you, GarageBand makes it much easier than it really has any right to be. Most of the podcasters I know use a Macintosh and GarageBand to get their internet audio show on, including the Insomnia Radio Daily Dose, The Portable Podcast, and The Touch Of Gaming Podcast, just to name (drop) a few.

Apple is clearly working towards making solid-state storage a standard for its MacBook line, which means our notebook computers have never been speedier. The only problem is, the flash storage Apple uses is still pretty expensive, and so most of us have to settle for less of it when we’re buying a new MacBook.

That means we either need to come up with ways to decrease our data consumption, or add cheaper external storage for things like our iTunes libraries and torrent archives. If you’re going for the latter (the easier option) then you need the Nifty MiniDrive, an SD card specifically designed for MacBooks that you’ll hardly ever notice.

Although we’ve been deeply skeptical over the speculation surrounding another new 10-inch iPad this year, there is a possibility Apple could be gearing up to make some modifications to its existing device. The Cupertino company has been quick to dismiss the new iPad’s heat issues, but the latest report from DigiTimes claims it is looking to remove one of its two backlight modules in an effort to decrease its operating temperature.

Raise your hand if you really like managing your home/personal finances. I’m betting the few of you who did raise their hands are either in the financial industry or just dig numbers. The rest of us? Well we all hate trying to track budgets, spending, the “can I afford a new 32GB iPad now…” questions, and keeping work/tax expenses straight. I think I might have the solution for you.

Cashculator.

Manage all your finances, simply and easily and only $15!

Amazon has taken the next great leap in competition with Apple. Jeff Bezos and company, not resting with their Kindle Fire bargain tablet, has apparently been working on its own smartphone device, reportedly with Focxonn International, the phone maker based in China that Apple has had some press about lately.

Citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg reports that Amazon is also acquiring wireless technology patents to help it get a leg up on the current patent infringement lawsuit frenzy. If the rumors are true, could Amazon bring a third horse to the race?

Apple has just reported that it has fixed a glitch that’s been plaguing app developers and downloaders today, rendering app updates downloaded today or late yesterday useless. The apps refused to launch, and no amount of re-installation would fix the issue.

Apple just issued a statement to All Things D that calls the all clear. The initial corruption was linked to Apple’s Fairplay digital rights management (DRM), and Apple said it only affected a small number of users.

When I saw that well-regarded audio company, SRS, was offering a new Mac-compatible version of their Audio Essentials software, I headed – nay, rushed – over to their website to grab the free demo for the new Mac version.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, as the message that greeted me when I (finally) found the Mac download page: “Our servers our currently jammed due to the popularity of the new release of Audio Essentials. Downloading will take a little extra time. Thank you for understanding. We are working quickly to resolve the issue.”

Yep, it’s a hot download.

Unless you’ve spent a considerable amount of time in France, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve never seen the device pictured above. What you’re looking at is one of the predecessors to the internet, the Minitel. The Minitel was essentially a service offered in France that required a table-top box similar to the one above. Once connected, users could make purchases, check stock prices, chat with others, have a connected mailbox, and search the phone directory.

The service was finally retired only a few days ago, on June 30th, 2012, but some of the core innovations behind it, started all the way back in 1978, laid the path for what we know as the modern computer and internet service today.

The Minitel not only attracted the attention of millions of French users until the domination of the internet, it also drew the attention of Steve Jobs, who was inspired by the device.

One interesting challenge that’s emerging for companies out of the bring your own device (BYOD) and iPad-at-work trends is deciding who’s responsible for setting and enforcing policies when it comes to employee-owned devices. The immediate assumption is that it should be the IT department, but what group within IT? Security, network management, and user support teams can all make a claim that it should be them.

There’s even the question of whether or not IT is even the right department to take ownership of the situation. Some HR executives are claiming that this is an employee policy issue and therefore their responsibility. Some finance chiefs are claiming that they should own mobile devices if there’s going to be any expense sharing with employees or a stipend that helps users purchase devices for work.

In a growing number of organizations, there’s talk about creating a new position or a dedicated team to handle everything mobile – iPhones, iPads, Android handsets, in-house and public app stores, and anything else related to iOS, mobile, or BYOD. In other words, a mobility chief, or iOS Czar. 

It appears that Apple has finally acknowledged the app crashing issue that has been plaguing many apps on the iOS App Store in the last day or so. Originally highlighted by Instapaper creator Marco Arment here, apparently some newly updated apps were crashing on launch. The issues stem from corrupted app binaries that were being distributed on the App Store, and may be related to Apple’s FairPlay DRM.

Earlier this year, we reported on the plans by NetZero and FreedomPop to offer free 4G mobile broadband in the U.S. over ClearWire’s WiMax network. Both companies planned to operate on a freemium basis where users get a limited amount of data each month and can buy more if they choose.

This week, a company in the U.K. called Samba joined the free broadband bandwagon with a model that’s ad-based and freemium in nature, making it somewhat similar to NetZero’s original business model from the good old days of dial-up service.