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Shareholders Ignore Apple’s Request: New Directors Must Be Voted In

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Pic by Scott McNulty (http://www.flickr.com/photos/blankbaby/84763497/)

A potentially major coup has happened at today’s Apple Annual Shareholder Meeting: ignoring the request of Cupertino itself, Apple’s shareholders have approved a measure that now requires a majority vote for the approval of new Board Directors.

That’s big. For the first time, any new appointment to Apple’s Board of Directors will require that the shareholders approve in majority any new appointee. That gives the shareholders a lot more power over the company’s future… and could potentially lead to some interesting power struggles down the road.

Crazy-Expensive iPad DAC Is Gorgeously Excessive

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The Zodiac DAC looks amazing, and costs more than your car
The Zodiac DAC looks amazing, and costs more than your car

Oh man. €3,500 ($4,650) is a ridiculous amount to spend on an external digital-to-analog (DAC) for your iPad, but the Zodiac looks so sweet I’m still tempted. The top-of-the-line Zodiac Gold itself will only set you back €3,000 alone, but when purchased with the optional Voltikus power supply, you hit the bigger figure.

Watch Every iPhone TV Ad Ever Right Here [Video Gallery]

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Apple’s reputation for having the best advertisements out of all technology companies on the planet is well deserved. Not only are their ads phenomenal in quality, but they’ve made a certified crap load of them. The iPhone alone has enjoyed 84 separate TV advertisements over its five year exsistence, and now you can watch them all in one place. Adweek has compiled the entire iPhone advertising campaign into a single page so Apple fans can go through each ad chronologically, starting with the famous “Hello” ad that premiered at the Oscars in 2007, to the most recent one where a kid commands Siri to proclaim him a Rock God.

With so many ads, it’s hard to declare a favorite, but here’s a couple that we’re pretty fond of:

Cirago iPad Keyboard Case Looks Curiously Familiar

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At first look, this keyboard case is a clone of one by Zagg. Look closer and it gets better, though
At first look, this keyboard case is a clone of one by Zagg. Look closer and it gets better, though

Cirago’s Aluminum Bluetooth Keyboard Case looks mighty familiar, huh? It’s almost as if the designers at Cirago took Zagg’s/Logitech’s iPad 2 keyboard case, filed of some corners and added a kickstand. Then again, as just about the only thing wrong with the Zagg is the non-adjustable stand, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

T-Mobile Reports Another Huge Quarterly Loss Due To Lack Of iPhone 4S

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T-Mobile has announced its earnings for the 2011 holiday quarter, and the GSM carrier lost over 800,000 subscribers. Being the only major U.S. carrier left not carrying the iPhone, T-Mobile saw a 3.3% decrease in revenue to $20.6 billion.

Although the network’s growth has been on the decline for awhile, the fourth quarter of 2011 resulted in an exponentially greater loss following the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Spotify Gets Gapless Playback, Yes Fans Rejoice

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Roger Waters' Radio K.A.O.S, a giant in the field of concept albums
Roger Waters' Radio K.A.O.S, a giant in the field of concept albums

A brand new update from Spotify adds a couple of great new features. The Mac and Windows versions of the subscription music service both now support gapless playback and crossfading of songs. There is also a scattering of other tweaks and improvements.

iPhone And iPad Gaining Acceptance At The Office But With A Hefty Price

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When it comes to the consumerization of IT, there general perception is that IT professionals are very resistant to allowing the use of so-called consumer technology like the iPhone and iPad along with various personal cloud services. While it is true that many IT departments are hesitant about some aspects of this movement, they aren’t as fully resistant to consumer technology in the workplace as media reports would make you believe.

In fact, the results of a recent study looking at the use of personal computing technologies in the enterprise indicate that many IT departments are actively embracing the iPhone and iPad and the entire consumerization trend. The study, being reported by Business Computing World in the UK, included more than 600 senior executives around the world and turned up some surprising results – including how much money goes into managing employee-owned devices.

Dilbert And Steve Jobs Agree: Phablets Suck [Humor]

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Steve Jobs called then tweeners: too big to be a phone, too small to be a tablet. Others have coined a better portmanteau to describe them: “phablets.” It’s a wonderful word, isn’t it, somehow evoking both expectoration and flabbiness?

Anyway, we’re going to be seeing a lot of phablets next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (and make sure to stay tuned for our on-site reporting all next week), and my guess is that with most of them, the rationale that manufacturers have employed in making them will be eerily similar to the thought process described in the latest strip of Dilbert.

[Thanks, Mike!]

Zagg Boost Speaker Runs On ‘Magic’

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No wires, no Bluetooth, no nothing. The Boost appears to work by magic
No wires, no Bluetooth, no nothing. The Boost appears to work by magic

Zagg’s new Boost speaker, sold under the iFrogz brand, appears to amplify music using nothing but magic. Just place your iPhone (or any other device with a speaker) on top and it will boost the sound. No wires, no Bluetooth, no nothing. The music just issues forth from a pair of 2-watt speakers.

What If The iPhone 5’s Design Was Inspired By The Magic Mouse? [Gallery]

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Even when they are crazily off base, we’re fans of Italian conceptual studio CiccareseDesign’s work. At the very least, their mockups and renders of imaginary Apple products give some perspective to the whys and hows of the designs Jony Ive does choose.

Their latest mockup is of the forthcoming iPhone 5. What’s most interesting about the design they chose was that it is directly inspired by the Magic Mouse: not actually the worst idea for an iPhone, which like a mouse will sit in people’s hands all day. Here’s a gallery of the renders.

Not Even Android Fans Will Defend Samsung’s Latest Galaxy Note Spot [Video]

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We all love a good fight around here and we even have a recurring Friday Night Fights where we pit features of iOS vs Android, but this latest video by Samsung is just so asinine that not even us Android fans will defend it. To further promote their Galaxy Note, Samsung has decided to embarrass themselves by “going to the streets” to try and convince people how awesome the S-pen functionality is by challenging an obviously clueless iPhone user to perform the same mundane tasks as a seasoned (trained & scripted) Note user.

Apple’s MacBook Air Nearly Shipped With An AMD Processor In 2011 [Report]

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Apple updated its hugely popular MacBook Air last year to introduce Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 processors. But the Cupertino company very nearly shipped the ultraportable with an AMD chip instead. An employee for AMD has confirmed that it was very close to striking a deal with Apple, but AMD’s poor production yields meant that Intel was a better option.

Customize Your Login Screen With A Cool New Wallpaper [OS X Tips]

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Yeah, that gray linen login screen looked cool when it first appeared in OS X Lion, but honestly? It’s gotten a bit bland. As is typical of Apple, of course, there’s no built in way to change it. We’ve found two ways, one that messes with the system files (you’ve been warned!) and one that uses a third party app to allow us all to have even more pictures of LOLcats on our computers. Or, you know, our kids or pets or something.

Cylindrical Concept Camera Looks Like a Telescope

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The D-CAN is perhaps the most sensible camera ever. Apart from the name that is
The D-CAN is perhaps the most sensible camera ever. Apart from the name that is

Why does a camera look like a camera? Specifically, why do our cameras all resemble a box with a lens on the front? The answer is film. Film cameras needed a dark, light-tight place to store a roll or cartridge of film, and it needed to put a viewfinder close to that lens to avoid parallax problems.

Now, though, with film long consigned to the novelty closet, the only restriction is that the sensor sit behind the lens. And that’s where the D-CAN comes in, with its telescope-shaped body.

OnLive Desktop Plus Brings Flash To The iPad For $4.99 Per Month

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If you still haven’t gotten over the fact that your iPad doesn’t have Adobe Flash player, than OnLive Desktop Plus may soothe your pain. As you may have guessed, the new app is a premium version of OnLive Desktop, which brought Microsoft Office to the iPad earlier this year.

In addition to Office, the premium version offers Flash Player and a PDF-enabled web browser, but it comes at a price of $4.99 per month.