With pens, there are really only a few designs — fountain pens with nibs, ballpoints and felt-tipped markers. Anything else is pretty much just a variation on those. But with iPad styluses, pen designers seem to be going crazy with brand new ideas. One of these is the GoSmart Stylus, and at first look it seems like a terrible idea. Pick it up and use it, though, and you’ll be hooked.

At this point, the consensus of everyone from the smallest Apple blogs to the venerable Wall Street Journal is that Apple will dump Google as its Maps provider in iOS 6 in favor of its own, in-house technology that will bring, among other enhancements, 3D mapping to the mix.

Apple’s move has caught Google not just off-guard, it’s put the search giant into a total panic. Need proof? Look no further than Google’s debacle of an emergency announcement today, in which they unveiled “the next dimension of Google Maps.”

During this announcement, Google coincidentally announced their own 3D Maps solution… coincidentally enough, just five days before Apple’s expected to unveil theirs. Oh, and they showed it working on an iPad instead of an Android tablet… and their app was so hacked together it crashed numerous times during the presentation.

Can anyone say “rushed?”

If you’re considering developing an ad-support mobile app or if you’re an advertiser looking to get the most bang from your mobile advertising buck, you’re likely to find that iOS devices deliver a significantly bigger ad return than most Android phones or tablets regardless of the screen size of the device(s) in question.

That news comes Jumptap, a company that specializes in targeted mobile advertising which uncovered some interesting and information for mobile app developers and companies looking to develop a mobile ad campaign.

At today’s Google Maps event, Google revealed a few planned features for not only Google Maps for Android (no mention of iOS), but also Google Earth for Android and iOS. The Google Maps announcement was simply offline support, and something that users have been after for years. In Google Earth news, Google announced stunning new 3D images and a new UI would be coming soon to both Android and iOS platforms.

Are you ready to go paperless, but need a great way to convert your scans to editable text? Do you get lots of PDFs to review and need something with more oomph than Preview for edits, annotations, and changes? PDF is a great file format, but sometimes it’s frustrating when you need to do other stuff to them like convert them to another format, edit them, or pull out images or text for other documents. This is why you need PDF Editor Pro.

Regularly this is a $100 app, but it’s yours for $48 right now as a Cult of Mac Deal.

There are probably hundreds of apps that will turn your iPhone into a mobile fitness device, using the phone’s GPS to track your speed and from there derive calories burned, route taken and so on. Some of them even connect wirelessly through a dongle to heart-rate monitors and the like. It’s like having a coach in your pocket, only he doesn’t wake you up in the morning by shouting at you.

Now, though, things are going to the next level. Wahoo’s new Blue SC speed and cadence sensor talks direct to the iPhone via low-powered Bluetooth 4, letting it communicate directly with your bike.

An Apple HDTV won’t be the first Internet-enabled television on the market. The market for so-called smart televisions has actually gotten pretty crowded over the past couple of years with products based around the Smart TV concepts of Samsung and LG as well as companies that offer televisions with GoogleTV.

Apple’s edge over the existing smart and connected television options is the company’s focus on creating a seamless and intuitive user experience. Based on a recent study, if Apple can deliver an interface half as good as expected, the company will make a killing in the HDTV market.

Apple and Samsung have long been battling over whether or not the latter copies the iPhone and iPad with its range of Galaxy devices, and  there’s a chance it may not end well for Samsung. But right now, it’s only helping the Korean company’s business. According to one unnamed executive, the legal battle “is worth it” because it’s increasing its brand awareness.

Professional social network giant LinkedIn has acknowledged that it is looking into a massive data breach. As a result of the breach as many as 6.5 million user accounts may have been compromised. Account data including login information and passwords have been leaked and posted to a Russian hacker site. Although LinkedIn hasn’t confirmed the breach or detailed which accounts might have been impacted, the fact that the company is acknowledging the potential threat and investigating it is a big cause for concern.

At this time, it’s better to err on the side of caution.

If you use LinkedIn, you should consider that your account data has been compromised and change your password immediately.

Good news for fans of the popular Sparrow Mac/iPhone email client: the app is coming to the iPad. The makers of Sparrow have posted a new teaser page for their iPad app with the tagline, “We are preparing something bigger.”

Everyone is encouraged to enter their email and signup to know when the app will be released. No other details have been provided about the app. A jailbreak tweak

Sparrow caused quite the stir recently when it announced that it would have to charge users for push notifications on the iPhone. Sparrow is available in the Mac App Store for $10 and on the iPhone for $3.

Thanks: Matt

Despite Apple’s stated efforts to improve worker conditions at their Foxconn factories in China, worker tension is still high, as up to a thousand workers rioted in Chengdu last night for hours over a minor incident.

Dell hasn’t had anything resembling success in the tablet market with either businesses or consumers, but that isn’t stopping the company from deriding the iPad and its success.

According to Dell Australia’s managing director Joe Kreme, users only buy iPads because they’re “shiny” and troubleshooting any issue with an iPad or iOS could take up to four days. As a result of these so-called facts, Kreme said that the tablet race hasn’t even started yet.

Apple is reportedly gearing up to open two new stores in China which will be positioned near the Foxconn factories that assemble the large majority of its Mac and iOS devices. There are currently only five Apple retail stores on China’s mainland — three in Shanghai and two in Beijing — but Chengdu and Shenzhen could be home to another two very soon.

Best Of Photo Accessories [Best Of]

We have noticed a big crossover between Apple users and camera geeks. And while the iPhone’s own camera continues to get better and better, your old SLR still has some life in it yet. And whatever you shoot with, there are accessories that can perk up your interest or let you catch an otherwise-impossible shot. These are the best of them.

Dungeons of Dredmor is one of my favorite games on Steam, a funny, impish, brutal yet utterly modern entry in my favorite gaming genre, rogue-likes. It only costs $1.50 right now, which rounding down for inflation is essentially free, so you might as well buy it. It’s a great introduction to that most sadistic genre of games, the rogue-like.

But Dungeons of Dredmor’s low, low price isn’t why we’re posting. Nor is the fact that it just got a free new expansion pack full of great new monsters and skills.

No, the reason we’re posting is because of that expansion pack’s new system requirements, which will elicit either a chuckle or an outraged roar from Apple fans.

Those of you using OS X 10.7 Lion (which I hope is all of you) may have missed the ability to adjust the system volume in tiny quarter steps. This feature was available in Snow Leopard and ditched in the Lion "upgrade." Now, in good news for obsessive compulsive Mac users the world over, the option has returned.

Let’s face it, rotating a bunch of images can be a time or a money sink. You either have to open each image one at a time, rotate them manually, and then seave them, one at a time, or you need to purchase an image editing program like Photoshop or Fireworks. And don’t get me started on figuring out how to do this in Gimp, a free, open source image editing program.

Turns out, though, you’ve already got all you need right on your Mac. Batches of image can be rotated all at once with Preview.

Recent rumors surrounding Apple’s next-generation iPhone have been largely focused on whether or not the device will get a bigger display and LTE connectivity, and what it will look like. But according to one analyst, we should also be talking about the handset’s front-facing camera, which is finally expected to become HD-capable for high-quality FaceTime calls.

Apple extended its library of iOS emoji icons in its iOS 5.1 release, and the icons have been present in every firmware build that has landed ever since. However, the Cupertino company is yet to activate the latest set, and so they remain hidden within your device’s software. Fortunately, a new jailbreak tweak called Emoji2 for iOS 5.1+ unlocks them all for you.

We’ve seen a handful of tablet cases — especially for the iPad — that aim to turn your slate into a MacBook Air lookalike. But the ClamBook  from ClamCase is the first solution we’ve seen that’s designed for the iPhone and Android smartphones, and it promises to “change the way you view smartphones.”

Built from sleek aluminum, the ClamBook is incredibly thin and light. It comes to life when you hook it up to your smartphone to see its content on the widescreen display, which is accompanied by a full-size QWERTY keyboard and a multitouch trackpad.

This week Sony unveiled a new camera designed to compete as a second camera for people who know about photography and have pro gear as well as for less-serious photographers who just want to take better pictures on a compact. According to Sony, the new DSC-RX100 is the most advanced camera in this line.

My first decision is easy when heading out on an outdoor adventure: Take the iPhone with me? Oh, you betcha. The next one is much more difficult. Since the iPhone requires a boost in both protection and juice when playing Indiana Jones, I’m forced to choose between slipping on a battery case and worrying about my iPhone shattering on a rock, or (painstakingly) wrapping it in a rubber case and hoping it doesn’t run out of power.

But Mophie’s new $130 iPhone 4/S battery pack — sort of a cross between a tank and a tanker — says “COMPROMISE IS FOR THE WEAK.” And also, the poor.

With the MacBook Pro, Air and iMac lineups all expected to see a refresh at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference next week, it looks like the seemingly-abanonded Mac Pro will also be updated. Apple has begun pulling Mac Pro stock from its retail stores and online shipping estimates are also starting to slip. This type of activity is typical right before a new version of an Apple product is announced, as Apple clears out its old inventory to make room for the new.

The Mac Pro saw its last refresh in July of 2010, and many have begun to lose faith that Apple will continue to support its ‘pro’ users as the company transitions to being more consumer-oriented. It would seem that we can all be hopeful for the future of the Mac Pro, as the machine is about to see its first refresh in nearly two years.

Apple today released a very minor update for the second and third-gen Apple TV. iOS 5.0.2 is available now, and the release follows version 5.0.1 released for the Apple TV on May 10th.

No new changes have been provided for 5.0.2 other than, “Addresses an issue which caused content restrictions to be incorrectly applied for the iTunes Store in Australia.” You can download the update now on your Apple TV set-top box.

It’s been rumored that Apple will unveil a totally new Apple TV OS to developers at WWDC. We’ll have to wait and see what Apple announces at Moscone next week.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference is set to kick off next Monday with a media keynote, and signage for the conference is already being put up. We expected the banners to start going up Friday afternoon, but Apple has started decorating earlier than normal.

Thousands of developers will fill the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California all next week, and Apple is expected to unveil iOS 6, new Macs, and some other surprises. It’s going to be a wild week!

Update: We’ve gotten more pics from the Moscone Center for you to check out.