There’s no question that the iPad and iPhone are two of the best ways to watch a movie. But the biggest problem is getting our favorite DVD’s on to the dang things. Sure, you can go to iTunes and buy a digital copy of your movie, again. But that costs a lot of money if you want a digital copy of all your movies, and if you already own the physical disc, what’s the point? Plus, once you download those movies, the iPad only has a limited amount of storage available. Those two hurdles prevent a lot of people from fully realizing the beauty of owning an iOS device by watching their favorite movies.

This week we’re bringing you two solutions to get over your DVD ripping hurdles: the MacX DVD Ripper Pro Stream Edition and MacX Video Converter Pro by Digiarty. MacX DVD Ripper Pro Streamer’s package includes the ability to rip movie files from the DVDs you already own, convert them into iPhone and iPad supported video files, and wirelessly stream them to your iOS device. MacX Video Converter Pro can take those files and convert them to any video format you need, or download your favorite Vimeo and YouTube videos right off the web. Not only is Digiarty’s software awesome, and easy enough for your momma to use, but they’re giving it away, FREE, to all Cult of Mac readers for the next 7 days!

Here’s how to get your copy:

Apple’s iPhone dock looks good, but has a couple of big problems. It doesn’t accommodate cases and it hangs onto your iPhone and won’t let go. The ODOC stand fixes both these issues, and looks great too.

Incase, the company that produced the first iPod case for Apple, has gained a reputation for making well-designed and well-made Apple accessories utilizing advanced construction techniques and innovative materials. The company has just updated its lineup of iPad cases for the new iPad.

Following a short hiatus, Cult of Mac’s weekly must-have apps and games features are back! Here we’ll roundup our pick of the week’s best iOS titles, including our favorite new releases and updates worth writing home about.

This week’s picks feature what is quite possibly the best arcade fighter yet to hit the App Store, awesome updates to Angry Birds Space and Jetpack Joyride, plus a fantastic platformer that I just can’t put down.

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Games have held a remarkable 40 month lead over all other categories when it comes to mobile apps. Mobile games have become so popular that even powerhouse console gaming companies such as Nintendo have seen their profits plummet because of them. They’ve given developers the highest ad revenue and have consumed more of a consumer’s time than any other app category. Unfortunately, like all good things, mobile gaming’s reign has come to an end. There’s a new head honcho in app land and its name is social networking.

How quickly WWDC sold out this week – less than two hours and before many developers on the west coast were even out of bed – raises some interesting questions for Apple. Could the company have handled the announcement better? Should Apple allow more than 5,000 developers to attend? Is the current model for WWDC, which was adopted years ago, still viable given the stratospheric success that Apple has experienced over the past few years?

Some folks just aren’t all that great with money. For some it’s because it’s just not something that’s fun to do. They have all the knowledge and understanding, but it just a boring bit of drudgery that they can’t be bothered to give it the care and attention it deserves. Perhaps if it was more fun to deal with, it’d make things a whole lot easier – and better.

Enter Cult of Mac Deals…and Toshl Finance Pro.

This simple and intuitive web-based application (and mobile app) is a personal financial assistant that, believe it or not makes finance fun. It helps you note down your expenses and income, and plans your finances with detailed budgets so you can be on-top of every penny. And Cult of Mac Deals has an offer for a one-year license of Toshl Finance Pro for only $10 – which is worth more than every penny.

True story: When my mother was pregnant with me, she and her friends got together to do a Ouija board. The story goes that the glass moved around, and then smashed. My mother told everyone that they should finish things up properly, and “put the spirit away,” or some such thing.

They laughed, and ignored her. Over the next few weeks, everybody present at the séance had an accident. My mother fell out of her car while leaning out the door to reverse. Luckily, her hair was styled in a bun, which cushioned the impact.

Did this make me superstitious? Nope. In fact, the first thing I thought when I saw this Ouija Book Cover Case (€66 or $87) from Etsy maker Joe V was “if you’re able to look into the future and communicate with the other side, Mr.V, then why the hell is the screen of your iPad so scratched up? Surely you should have seen that coming?”

Skepticism aside, the leather book cover looks like the perfect Christmas gift for Cult of Mac’s own resident mysticist John Brownlee aka. Dr.Crypt. Or should I say “pagan midwinter fertility-festival gift”? The hefty tome is etched with the alphabet, numbers from one to zero and — of course — the words “yes” and “no.” Thus equipped, our hard-working editor will be able to check up on us minions without even entering our Cult of Mac chatroom.

“Will Charlie finally write a serious post?” he will chant in monotone, as the empty diet Coke can moves all by itself over to “no,” yet again.

“Whose post will get the most page views next week?” he will continue, and the can will scrape drily across the leather towards the letter “B.” Then, as it slides down and right towards the “U,” Dr. Crypt will hurl the can aside in petulant frustration. “Damn you, Buster Heine,” he’ll shout, “Damn you and your interesting, reader-friendly posts!”

Then, as Mr. Brownlee’s harsh words float down onto the aging cowskin, something happens on the other side of the country. As Buster picks up his morning beverage and relaxes with his iPad to read the news, the air suddenly grows chill, and the screen doors start to flap and slam in the rising breeze. Buster looks up to see the livid, contorted face of his editor swirling in the mists now whipping in through the open windows. He starts, and the iPad slips from his hands, cracking the screen in one corner.

If only he’d had it in a sturdy, witchcraft-proof case.

AT&T today announced it would be adding Salt Lake City to its list of markets expected to get 4G LTE later in the year. AT&T continues expanding other areas, with Austin, TX seeing additional coverage just the other day. It’s going to be a slow and steady pace with AT&T so if you’re looking for 4G LTE right away, you may want to consider Verizon, otherwise sit tight and be happy you’re not on Sprint.

What a world we live in. The things we can do with our iOS devices are world changing, and would make a person visiting from just a few decades ago squeal with delight or shiver with fear, depending on their philosophical bent.

Today’s tip is one of those “obvious if I’d thought about it” kind of tips that, well, is pretty obvious when you think about it. Here’s how to live stream the camera from your iPad 2, New iPad, or iPhone 4S to a big screen TV via AirPlay and an AppleTV.

High Fidelity, Say Anything and Brat Pack star John Cusack not only met with Steve Jobs to discuss starring in the very first iPod commercial, he got to play around with an early iPod prototype and got an early look at the iPod and iTunes rollout plan, according to a new interview.

This week featured a handful of announcements relating to using your iPhone as a virtual wallet including news of Boston’s smartphone-based commuter rail payment system and CVS integrating its loyalty card system into its iPhone app.

Capping the week is news that restaurant chain T.G.I. Fridays announcement that more than of its franchises in the U.S. will begin offering patrons the ability to settle their restaurant or bar tab using an app. The move comes as part of partnership with startup Tabbedout – a mobile payment company that aims to bring iPhone (and Android phone)  payments into the mainstream with a focus on bars and restaurants.

Apple launched the Mac App Store with over 1,000 apps back in January of 2011, and the digital storefront has been rapidly growing ever since. Thanks to warm reception from the developer community and the exclusive distribution of software like Final Cut Pro X and OS X Lion, Apple controls the largest and most vibrant PC software storefront in the world.

15 months in and the Mac App Store is home to more than 10,000 apps. While not as big a number as the iOS App Store’s 500,000+ titles, the success of the Mac App Store heralds the future of software distribution.

Let’s say you like music. And parties. In fact, let’s say you like partying and music so much, you flit around from house to house, grooving away each night, mesmerising your friends with your iPhone’s fabulous playlists. Sound like you? Then you’ll probably go nuts over Monster’s dock-equipped, super-portable, no-fuss Clarity HD Model One speakers.

Monster really zeroed in on designing this set as a portable party. Each cabinet has a top carrying handle, and the right speaker sports a recessed 30-pin iPod/iPhone dock with a power button and volume knob nestled nearby. If you forget your iDevice at home, there are three other input options to choose from.

Earlier in the year, Apple acquired app discovery engine Chomp in an effort to improve app discoverability in their App Store. As we all know, discovering apps among the hundreds of thousands that populate popular app stores can sometimes be a chore, so it would make sense for Apple to acquire such a company as Chomp. However, Chomp also improved app discoverability of Android apps and since Apple’s acquisition we’ve wondered if this would one day change. Well, guess what? That day has come and it looks like Apple has chomped out Android app discoverability completely.

Some combinations are so obviously good when you see/hear/taste them that you wonder why they haven’t existed forever. Of course, some *have* been around for that long.

Just 6,000 years ago, when the universe winked into existence, the Lord blessed us with such holy wonders as apple pie (or apple crumble in the King James bible) and vanilla ice-cream; Dungeons *and* dragons; and of course hurtling, death-dealing two-ton automobiles and chronically distracted drivers.

Now we can add another devine device to that list: the solar-powered hands-free speakerphone.

Benedit Cumberbatch may look like a Reptilian straight out of David Icke’s worst nightmares, but he’s an incredible actor who not only plays the world’s greatest detective in the BBC’s surprisingly watchable series Sherlock, but will also play the dragon Smaug in Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit. He also happens, just happens, to be The Most British Man Alive. Oh, and the kind of cool guy who films his audition tapes on an iPhone too, as it turns out.

Facevault is a one-dollar photo archive app that can only be unlocked by one person – the one with the right face.

It sounds neat, and yes, it works. But the face recognition features come at a price, and are hindered by a flaw that affects other apps using the same technology: it can’t tell the difference between real faces, and photos of real faces.

I hate jogging, but if popular culture has taught me anything, it’s that come the inevitable zombie apocalypse, a trim physique, muscular calves and a five minute mile might be the only thing between me and having my guts stuffed into the rotting maws of some reanimated ghouls. Maybe you won’t run to lose weight, but will you run to save your life?

That’s the idea behind the awesome looking “fitness” app Zombies, Run!. It’s like Runkeeper with a twist: you’re not jogging to burn calories, but running to escape the undead.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really got my head around LinkedIn. It does the connections thing very well, but I’ve never considered it as a social networks. It’s not a place I go to, you know, faff about. So do I want it on my iPad? Ummm.

Jean Michel Jarre might be laying off the lasers, the lightshows and the spectacular outdoor concerts, but he’s not letting his 63 years catch up with him: he has simply switched his ostentatious attentions to high-end iPhone and iPad docks.

The latest is the AeroPad Two, a 30-pin dock connector-equipped behemoth of a home stereo which could probably shake your house to pieces.

Apple’s Newsstand feature wasn’t without controversy as the company rolled it out. Issues around Apple’s control of subscriptions as well as the company’s 30% cut of content sales were hotly debated last year. However, with Newsstand a hit, publishers (and Apple) are reaping $70,000 a day from it.

And, if publishing execs everywhere agree with The Economist’s CEO Andrew Rashbass, that controversy is dead and buried – and it’s other iOS digital distribution models that pose a threat to publishers.

Warning. I’m about to write about yet another iPhone camera rig adapter. I will continue to do this, over and over, until somebody makes a case which makes it easy for me to shoot photos with the iPad 3. If you want me to stop, then all you need to do is whip something up on Kickstarter.

Today’s adapter is the iSupport, a heavy-duty (yet light at 6 ounces) case which covers the iPhone 4/S and makes it a whole lot easier to use for shooting video.

Google is well known for their awesome Easter Eggs and today’s will have you Starcraft faithful Zerging in your pants. If you do a Google search for “Zerg Rush” you’ll soon find yourself defending your page against the ravaging appetites of ominous Os. It’s a fun and geeky reference to the overwhelming scale of attack carried out by the mass-producing “Zerg” race from the popular RTS game Starcraft.

It’s no secret that the iPad is Apple’s fastest selling product ever. That fact was made clear during the company’s recent financial call when Tim Cook compared how long it took for other Apple products to reach current iPad sales figures. What hasn’t been as clear is just how much the iPad is expanding Apple’s overall customer base.

A new NPD study, however, shows that the iPad is playing a significant role in helping Apple attract new customers. It turns out that one out of every four iPad buyers have never owned an Apple product before.