One recurring theme from many large companies is that Apple doesn’t act like other enterprise technology companies. It’s a common complaint that CIOs and IT leaders have been making for years. As Apple products have entered more and more businesses, the refrain has gotten louder.

According to Politico, Apple treats lawmakers in Washington in much the same way, which is causing similar reactions in the halls of Congress. While Apple may be able to shrug off concerns about its approach to businesses, it may not be so lucky when it comes Washington insiders.

I have mixed thoughts on home-monitoring systems. On the one hand, you get some peace of mind knowing when the house is empty. But on the other, if the worst does happen, you get to watch the burglar burglarize your home, live, as it happens. I guess at the very least, you do have a warning not to use that toothbrush ever again. Not after the burglar stuck it in his [That’s enough! -Ed].

Still, if you’re going to add cameras to the house, then Logitech’s new “Alert 750n Indoor Master System – with Night Vision” looks pretty good. It uses your home’s powerlines to both power the camera and connect it to the network, and you can monitor it from an iOS app.

Ongoing concerns over the practice of employers requiring prospective and current employees to hand over their social media passwords has led to the introduction of new legislation prohibiting the practice. According to Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D-CT) government page, the Password Protection Act of 2012 will enhance current law to prohibit employers from compelling or coercing employees into providing access to their private accounts:

How important are iPads and other tablets to mobile carriers worldwide compared to mobile broadband devices? According to a new study, they’re becoming a critical part of the mobile business. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that before the iPad’s launch two years ago, tablets were a rarity in mobile carrier stores. Today, thanks largely to the iPad, tablets make up 40% of mobile broadband offerings.

Proview has long been battling with Apple over its use of the “iPad” trademark in China, but the Cupertino company has moved to put an end to the dispute by offering a settlement figure of ¥100 million (around $16 million). The problem is, that sum covers very little of Proview’s massive debt, and the company is demanding a $400 million payout instead.

If your new Apple gadget picks up a fault before its warranty expires, Apple will repair or replace your device for free. No matter how long you’ve had it — whether it’s six months old or just one week — you’ll almost always receive a refurbished model as a replacement.

Unless you live in Korea, where Apple has just introduced the “world’s best” after-sales policy, which will provide customers with brand new devices if theirs become defective within one month.

AT&T is looking forward to a future when all devices, including iPads are sold with 3G or LTE built-in. That was the message that the carrier’s Glenn Lurie, president of emerging devices, told reporters at this week’s CTIA conference in New Orleans. That approach would be somewhat similar to many smart TV devices that include support for a range of features that users may or may not use – Netflix or Flickr on the Apple TV, for example.

Lurie described the current range of tablet options where devices, including the iPad, come in separate Wi-Fi and 3G/4G models as being “a little out of balance” – a situation he ascribed to the cost difference that 3G and LTE versions of a device compared to its Wi-Fi-only counterparts.

Maybe you’re a world traveler, looking to keep track of the time in the many places you visit around the globe. Or, you might be an office manager, only your offices are spread acloss several different timezones in as many countries. Heck, maybe you just write for a bunch of different websites and your editors need you to keep track of what time it is in their hometown before you call them about a hot story lead. Whatever the reason, today’s tip is an app that will help you with the need for many clocks.

Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou has confirmed that Apple will use some of its cash to help improve the labor conditions for more than 1 million workers in Foxconn’s Chinese factories, where devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod are assembled.

Gameloft has blown us away with its N.O.V.A. 3 teaser trailers over the past few weeks, and today one of the most anticipated iOS games so far this year makes its App Store debut. The series has always been up there with the best first-person shooters for iPhone and iPad, but this release promises to deliver a new benchmark for graphics and gameplay on iOS.

N.O.V.A. 3 could be the best $7 you’ve spent on mobile gaming to date.

Apple could be preparing to kill off OS X Lion early in favor of its predecessor, Mountain Lion, according to the company’s AppleCare training schedule. One source claims that the Cupertino company is already recruiting and training staff for the new release, which could get its debut in June, weeks earlier than expected.

Instapaper 4.2 has just hit the App Store, and it’s a pretty big update. The headline feature is a new iBooks-style page-turn animation, but there is a lot more in there besides.

Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 4 can now be bought from the Mac App Store. The RAW photo editing app joins Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, and is Adobe’s first full-featured flagship application to make it into the store.

We absolutely adore a good wallpaper here at Cult of Mac, so we’re thrilled to share 2048px.com with you, the first website solely dedicated to offering beautiful wallpapers for the new iPad’s gorgeous Retina display.

Many people I’ve talked to are anxious to try out the new features Apple has brought to OS X Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, Apple has only made the beta of Mountain Lion available to registered developers. In this video, I’ll show you how you can get the biggest features of Mountain Lion today, using only existing apps.

When Apple introduced Notification Center in iOS 5 last summer, jailbreak developers immediately started creating third-party widgets to enhance certain functionalities and create shortcuts for iOS. Widgets for toggling system preferences, for instance, are now available in Cydia for Notification Center. What would happen if the idea of widgets left Notification Center and made its way to the iOS Home screen?

Prolific Cydia developer Ori Kadosh has released Dashboard X, an ambitious extension for adding floating widgets to your jailbroken iPhone and iPad’s springboard.

Facebook just announced the App Center, a place for discovering and installing social apps/games that tie into Facebook’s developer platform. Apps offered in the App Center will be available on the web and mobile, including Android and iOS devices.

If you think Facebook is trying to take on Apple and Google’s storefronts directly, fret not. The App Center will be part of the official Facebook application and send mobile users to their respective storefronts, whether it be Apple’s App Store or Google Play.

Apple’s online store delivers one of the most satisfying online retail experiences out there. According to customer experience researchers at ForeSee, only one company delivered a better experience than Apple – Amazon. ForeSee also said that Apple (and Amazon) had achieved what it refers to as “the threshold of excellence.” 

Yes, it’s true — well, at least the part about iOS getting a beautiful Google+ app update before Android. The only logical explanation I could come up with for this travesty is that Vic lost a bet during a friendly game of golf with Tim. At least that’s the story I’m telling myself as I weep in a dark corner.

Kidding aside, the new Google+ app looks beautiful, and although iOS users get to use it now, it will be coming to Android soon enough — and is supposed to include a few extra surprises for us Android folks (that won’t win me back Vic! — Okay, maybe it will).

Today Apple released Safari 5.1.7 alongside OS X 10.7.4. The latest Safari update includes several general improvements and bug fixes, including a new way of handling Adobe Flash on the web. If an older version of Flash attempts to run in Safari 5.1.7, Apple’s browser will automatically disable it and give you the option to install the newest version of Flash from Adobe’s website.

Have you been eyeing on a brand new Caddy? Do you like Apple products? Then you will be pleased to know that Cadillac will giving each buyer of its 2013 XTS a new iPad.

Announced at the CTIA conference this year, iPads will be loaded up with car manuals and apps to then be given to 2013 XTS owners. The initiative is supposed to teach car owners about CUE, the dashboard system that comes with a new Caddy.

Apple has just released OS X 10.7.4, the fourth maintenance update for Lion, and can be found through Software Update. The update is recommended for all Macs and includes most notably a fix to the blunder left in OS X 10.7.3 that stored passwords in plain text on a user’s hard drive. Full release notes are after the jump:

If you’ve ever used AirPlay to connect speakers or your AppleTV to your iPhone, you’ll know that you’ve got to be diligent about disconnecting your device afterwards, lest you suddenly start piping sounds or video to somewhere else accidentally.

How bad can it be if you don’t remember to do that? Really, really bad. In fact, this is pretty much the worst case scenario we could think of: one Redditor who forgot to disconnect his iPhone from his Apple TV via AirPlay ended up showing his in-laws a homemade pornographic film featuring their daughter.

May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here  and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.

Although Good does provide device and app management, its primary focus is securing business data. To that end, the company effectively segregates all business information and documents on a device from a user’s personal content. To accomplish this Good’s iOS app delivers the same features as Apple’s Mail, Calendar, and Contacts apps – a move that ensures business messages event data are always secure. Good also includes a secure web browser and secure on-device document and data storage. The secure data store is sandboxed and can restrict users from copying data to unapproved apps as well as prevent such apps from accessing business documents or files.Good also provides a government agency solution that has been certified to meet various government and military standards for secure access including two-factor authentication.

Good leverages these technologies through a new solution called Good Dynamics that allows other companies, including mobile management vendor Boxtone who we profiled earlier in this series, to take advantage of Good’s secure data store. See our Good Dynamics coverage for more details.

How many times has this happened to you? You start showing your Aunt Rose some cute pictures of her grand-niece’s latest piano recital, and she grabs the phone, fully intending on flipping through the photos herself, thank you very much. It’s then you realize that the pictures of your debauchery from the weekend before last are just on the other side of all those cute kid photos and you know your aunt is going to blithely stumble into them as she flips through. It’s this moment that today’s tip is there to protect you from.