PicPlayPost is supposedly a way to make video diptychs of your precious moments, and then share them via the usual social networks. But if you grew up in (or otherwise managed to live through) the 1980s, you’ll know exactly what this app is for: remaking the cheesy title sequences of 1980s TV shows like Dallas.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the Sony Tablet S is its design. It’s not flat, but a wedge that fits comfortably into the hand, like a magazine with its cover folded back on a hot summer day. The Tablet S looks wholly unlike any other tablet on the market. It’s something original, something that instead of simply trying to be an iPad knock-off has its own distinct design language. And it’s without a doubt the best thing about the Sony Tablet S. It’s just a shame that this brave and wonderful sense of identity in a sea of iPad clones is only skin deep.

We’ve all been there, that moment when the bill for that great mobile plan you signed up for comes in. Monthly access charges, usage charges, surcharges, taxes, governmental surcharges & fees — the list goes on… and on… and on. The FCC and others call this “bill shock,” while I call it well… we’ll save that for another day. Regardless of how we feel about these charges and fees, they are the services we signed up for and agreed to pay. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to monitor our usage and it can be very easy to incur overage charges when it comes to services like data and text messaging.

Earlier this month, five regional U.S. carriers announced that they would begin carrying the iPhone 4 and 4S. All were offering the devices at $50 less than the standard list prices of the larger national carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint). All five carriers are in more rural areas of the country that aren’t well served by the national carriers. Two are in Alaska, for example.

Abvio has updated its trio of iPhone fitness apps — Cyclemeter, Runmeter and Walkmeter — with iCloud support and a bunch of new features. The biggest improvement, though, is that they are no longer annoying to use.

I can think of a ton of reasons to use a timer: boiling eggs, practicing times tables, timing a shower to conserver water, and a host of other tasks both domestic and official. Most of us have a timer, either on our iPhone or on a microwave in the kitchen. What if you wanted to time several things at once, though? Luckily, we’ve got you covered with today’s tip.

Probably the most widely anticipated gaming release on the Mac scene this year is Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo III, which is due to be released — after years of buzz and a twelve-year gap since Diablo II — on May 15th.

The Diablo games are fantastically-tuned hack-and-slashes in which you explore randomized dungeons, collect loot and gelatinize waist-deep hordes of monsters, and if you’ve never played one, you either hate gaming or have been woefully deprived.

Luckily, we can right that problem easily enough. Although there’s a month left before Diablo III is available to purchase, you can play the game’s beta up to level 13 for free all weekend long.

Your iPhone’s touchscreen might look just like a single pane of living glass, but there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. Every iPhone is comprised of multiple layers: an LCD that actually blasts the pixels out of the Retina Display, a glass substrate laye separating the LCD from the touch layer that translates your finger swipes and prods into input the system can read, and a layer of protective Gorilla Glass on top.

Obviously, Apple’s existing touchscreen tech works well, but having so many different layers has its drawbacks. A big one is that it adds to the iPhone’s thickness. But Apple may already be on the cusp of inking a deal with Sharp and Toshiba to adopt in-cell touch panel displays, which should lead to a slimmer, lighter iPhone 5.

Cydia is home to one too many lock screen tweaks. There are classic packages like LockInfo that enhance the iOS lock screen with all kinds of handy shortcuts and features, but there’s also tweaks like LockLauncher that are messy and ugly. With that said, FastLock is a refreshingly simple take on lock screen shortcuts for jailbroken iPhones.

Popular music recognition app Shazam released a standalone music player for the iPhone back in January. The app lets you scan your iPhone’s library and play back tracks with Shazam’s lyric service, LyricPlay. You can also queue tracks and create playlists specifically for the Shazam Player.

As of today Shazam has updated its music player app for the iPad. The latest update packs LyricPlay and Retina graphics.

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell recently addressed the rumor that Apple CEO Tim Cook visited his company last week in an interview with Seven Day Cooldown. Newell flat out denied the rumor, originally published by AppleInsider, that Tim Cook visited Valve HQ.

Cult of Mac originally added to the rumor by saying that Apple could have been meeting with Valve because Apple is working on its own type of gaming console for the living room, and was potentially looking for partnering with Valve.

While it’s been revealed that Cook did not in fact visit Valve, our sources have again reiterated that Apple is absolutely continuing with its plans for a living room gaming presence regardless of Valve involvement.

Many have speculated that Apple’s next iPhone will have lightning fast LTE ‘4G’ networking speeds. Chipset maker Qualcomm has been experiencing incredible demand for its next generation  28-nanometer LTE chips, and industry watchers are saying that device markers are having to adjust their LTE product roadmaps accordingly for 2012.

This news could be a factor in why Apple’s sixth-gen iPhone probably won’t hit the shelves this summer if it does indeed come with LTE. Instead, analysts are predicting an October rollout, mimicking the iPhone 4S launch just last year.

Puerto Rico based iGenApps showed off its signature service at the DEMO Spring event in silicon valley this week. iGenApps offers the ability to create iOS and other mobile apps with no programming knowledge and just a basic working knowledge of HTML. The service is centered around web app development, but the company claims a premium service will turn web apps into native apps for a price.

We’ve already told you about JailbreakCon, the world’s first jailbreak convention. The event will be held in the United States this September in sunny San Francisco, California. Tickets are on sale now, and we hope to see many Cult of Mac readers there this fall.

Holy crap. Check out this amazing custom iPad cover Redditor 44 Oz. had made for him by Australian-based leatherworking firm High On Glue, made with premium leather, suede lining, a kangaroo leather spine and embossed with the original Apple logo designed by Ron Wayne back in 1976, featuring Sir Isaac Newton resting under an Apple tree.

I don’t usually like folio-style cases, but I’m sliming myself with thick ropes of drool here. Covetous ropes of drool. This is a thing of beauty. Beat the rush and go give High On Glue your business, they’re going to be backed-up for months after this case goes viral.

More images below.

It’s been a busy day for photo sharing community 500px. They managed to launch a major update to their iPad app as well as release their first ever Android app. While Instagram is all the rage these days and has amateur mobile photographers giddy inside, 500px is a photo community built around passionate photographers and enthusiasts who discover, publish, share, buy and sell thousands of photographs every day. You won’t be snapping pictures with this app but you have the opportunity to:

When people ask why Apple doesn’t make its iPads in America, the usual explanation is that labor costs are so high, there’s no way an iPad could be made in the country for less than $1000. That answer has always lacked weight, as the manual labor of constructing an iPad is actually a very small portion of its overall build cost: building an iPad in America would cut down margins, but not double the price.

No, there’s a better reason why every iPad gets made in China, and you can find it on your local periodic table. Every iPad is made with a sizable number of rare earth metals… all of which can only be mined in China.

Mobile app management company Apperian announced two new features for companies looking to expand the use of iOS, Android, and BlackBerry apps as part of an overall mobile strategy. One feature aims to connect end  users within a company with IT staff and developers for collaboration on new and existing apps. The other is designed to give employees an easy way to rate and comment on apps already in use.

Apperian provides app management and deployment services for business and enterprise customers. The company’s EASE platform allows IT to create internal app stores showcasing both internal apps and public apps that are available through the iOS App Store. The company also provides a range of related services including the ability to push out apps and updates to devices over the air.

The iPhone and iPad are great mobile work solutions for many professions and IT is no exception. With the right collection of apps, virtually every IT job role can become mobile. Systems administrators, user interface designers, and even help desk agents can use their iOS devices to keep tabs on the technologies that they manage and resolve problem at any time from almost anyplace.

IT tools for iOS cover a wide range of ground from basic remote access to network diagramming. Here are a set of tools that no IT department should be without.

Yes, you can plug your iOS device into iTunes and get a bar graph of the space available, but what if you’re out and about and want to download something? How do you know at a quick glance how much space is left? Today’s tip shows you one way to do that.

The Retrospective 7 is another one in Think Tank’s great lineup of stealthy-ish camera bags. This one distinguishes itself by slapping a pocket on the side which is designed to hold an iPad or an 11-inch MacBook Air.

The UK case from Maroo is a premium folio case designed by Seth Aaron, winner of the seventh season of Project Runway. It’s made from black and white leather with black nylon stripes adorning the front, echoing the iconic Union Jack and “Seth’s love of all things British.”

Continuing with their 12 city rollout, AT&T has added three new cities to the LTE club today. Those living in Akron, Ohio; Canton, Ohio; and Lafayette, Ind will now be able to take advantage of the fantastic speeds LTE has to offer. While AT&T doesn’t come close to having the LTE coverage that Verizon does, they certainly have the speed — as shown by PC World’s independent testing.

There are few photo editing apps on for the iPad that are as versitle and easy to use as Snapseed while also giving users some great tools to make photos look better. It’s the best photo editting app on the iPad, but earlier today Snapseed released a new update for the app that makes it even better.

645 Pro is a new app that claims to shoot RAW images with your iPhone. It also offers control over almost every aspect of photo-taking, and comes on like an app that turns your iPhone into a DSLR. But let’s get back to that RAW business, which we all know is impossible.