The Wall Street Journal has published a report confirming that the iPad 3 will feature 4G LTE networking technology for both AT&T and Verizon customers. Apple’s next-generation iPad is expected to be announced on March 7th, and the device is rumored to feature an A6 quad-core processor and Retina display.

What do you do when your lover helps run the largest mobile social network in existence? You give him a Valentine’s Day gift only he could really appreciate. That’s exactly what Kaitlyn Trigger did for her boyfriend, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger.

Kaitlyn learned how to code so she could create Lovestagram, an easy way to make and send Valentines with Instagram photos. That’s a gift that would make any hipster blush.

Apple has announced that it will broadcast Tim Cook’s talk at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference tomorrow. The live stream will begin tomorrow, February 14th, at 12:30 PM PST/ 3:30 PM EST.

Cook has presented at the conference several times in past years. This will be his first presentation as the CEO of Apple, and he is expected to give “forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties” regarding Apple’s business.

There are sure to be some interesting statements given by Cook tomorrow, so be sure to tune into the audio stream at Apple’s Investor Relations page.

Fashion and photography go together like peanut butter and jelly, or Kentucky and Bourbon. So it’s not surprising that the newest Hipstamatic Pak, Made in America, is influenced by famed fashion photographer Chiun-Kai Shih, and released just ahead of New York Fashion Week. And it’s free throughout the 16th.

Some arguments about Apple never seem die despite the fact that reality has moved on. Arguments like the Mac not being compatible with Windows file sharing or disk formats and that all Apple products being inherently more expensive than any competitors. This morning, Computerworld’s Preston Gralla pulled several of these outdated arguments together to support his opinion that Apple would never unseat Microsoft in the enterprise.

Virtually every argument in this piece is easy to debunk with facts. What’s more important than responding to these outdated myths, however, is realizing that Apple doesn’t want to unseat Microsoft from its current place in the enterprise. Microsoft is actually doing a lot of enterprise heavy lifting for Apple.

Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file or share a contact with your iPhone over Bluetooth? Unfortunately, iOS 5 doesn’t have a built-in method for Bluetooth file sharing, so you’re out of luck if you don’t jailbreak.

A new Cydia extension called AirBlue Sharing brings zero-configuration Bluetooth sharing to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Following an earlier report from AllThingsD that the iPad 3 will be unveiled during the first week of March, iMore claims that Apple’s event is set to take place on Wednesday, March 7th.

The rumored tablet will reportedly feature a quad-core A6 processor, 2048×1536 ‘Retina’ display, and possible 4G LTE chipset technology.

The makers of the popular iPhone and iPad IM client Verbs, #include tech, are set to release a task manager application in partnership with River called Steps that looks almost identical to the highly-anticipated Clear todo iPhone app from Realmac Software and Impending.

Clear is set to go live in the App Store on Wednesday, but that hasn’t stopped #include tech and River from promoting its eerily-similar task management app.

Have you ever wanted one of those custom, Pantone-colored MacBook, but don’t want to pay the guys over at Colorware an $800 premium to make your device look like Jonny Ive and Punky Brewster’s illicit love sprog?

Well, the good news is that you can actually do it yourself in your own kitchen. The bad news is that for most of us, the process is so complicated and so likely to end in user error that while you’ll still save over Colorware’s $800 premium, you’ll still have to spend a few hundred bucks replacing your machine.

Remember how cool Palm Pilots were back in the day, and that weird Apple Tablet thing called the Newton? Well what would the iPhone’s operating system look like if it was designed back in 1986? We were getting in touch with our feminine side on Pinterest today and found the answer. Behold, iOS 0.0.1 straight from 1986. Looks great, doesn’t it? Check out some more images below.

The iPad’s split-keyboard feature — gained in iOS 5 — sure makes it a lot easier to type while standing up. But it also seems a lot clunkier than setting the iPad on a table, propped up by its Smart Cover and tapping away at its large, inviting keys.

But what if you could be just as slapdash with your keystrokes when pecking at the tiny split keyboard. Armed with one little tip, and nothing else, you can.

With Valentine’s Day upon us, many people are gearing up to share love with the special people in their lives. But why not share a little bit of the love with your Mac? If you’re wondering how you can do that….the latest Cult of Mac Deal has got the answer for you: The Mac Love Bundle.

For only $39, you receive over $300 worth of top-notch Mac apps! These apps won’t just show your Mac how much you love it….but it’ll give your Mac to show you how much it loves you in return. How’s that possible? Well, all 9 apps on The Mac Love Bundle handle a different area of your digital life, so when you grab the bundle and install it on your Mac (and use the apps, of course), you’ll find that your life in those areas will get a whole lot more appealing.

One of the challenges of BYOD programs is the need secure corporate data on an employee’s personal device. That usually includes locking down the device and applying varying management profiles to it. This can be as non-intrusive as requiring a passcode meeting certain criteria or it can be very restrictive and limit core features and services like iCloud or Siri on the iPhone 4S.

While there’s a technical challenge to securing employee-owned devices, there’s also a personal challenge. It’s not a small demand to ask for someone’s brand new iPhone or iPad and impose limits on what they can do with it, even if that means something as trivial as enforcing a passcode policy. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that employees sometimes object to that intrusion, particularly when it comes to more severe management requirements.

The question is: how does IT respond to this situation?

I’ve had the pleasure of using the HEX 13-inch Recon Messenger Bag ($80) for the last couple of weeks. We at Cult of Mac love bags, and I was excited to try such a good-looking messenger bag for my MacBook.

The HEX Recon differs from many bags in its class by offering a pouch specifically designed for holding and offering quick access to an iPad. With it’s top-notch build quality and minimal design, the Recon bag is an attractive option for everyday use.

Video games were about 50 times better when I was a kid than they are now. Maybe it was because we had to fill in the 8-bit graphics of Contra with our imaginations, rather than having all the gory beauty envisioned for us like in Modern Warfare 3. We’re big fans of iCade and their efforts to resurrect retro gaming, so when news hit today that they’re coming out with this cute little iOS controller called the iCade 8-Bitty, our news room collectively swooned over the contraption’s ambrosial charm.

Last week, the web exploded with the news that social iOS app Path was uploading your entire address book to its servers, and then keeping it there. Worse, it was sending and storing them in plain text (although the connection was at least SSL-encrypted). Clearly, having Path notify you when your friends join the service is handy, but is there a way to do this without compromising your privacy? According to Edinburgh iOS supremo Matt Gemmell, there is.

DoodleDesk ($5.99) turns your Mac’s desktop into a digital whiteboard you can write on and attach sticky notes to.

No one would ever argue that the MacBook Air is a fatty. At just 0.68 inches at its thickest point, the MacBook Air is thinner all-around than most axe blades, which will surely come in handy in a zombie apocalypse to come.

But how thin is 0.68 inches, really? Here’s a test you can show your friends to wow them. Open up your MacBook Air, then hold it up to the sun. The MacBook Air is so thin you can actually see sunlight shining through the screen through the Apple logo in back.

Try it for yourself, it really works (and it’s quite eerie). Thanks to Redditor Flemming Madsen for the great image and tip!

The consumerization of IT along with the growing trend of BYOD programs in business is requiring virtually all companies to at least look at mobile device management (MDM) solutions. There are dozens of MDM vendors out there that support iOS as well as most flavors of Android. The cost and complexity of implementing mobile management can vary widely depending on the extended feature sets of MDM products.

Until now, most MDM vendors offered enterprise-style licensing programs and there were very few low cost cost options. That changed this morning with Amtel’s announcement that it will be offering a free cloud-based MDM solution that supports a basic set or features for iPhones, iPads, and some Android devices.

If you are remodeling your home and wish to spend ten times the price of a regular power socket on each and every wall wart, you can opt for one of many USB-enabled faceplates which let you charge your gadgets right from the wall. But for a more practical and portable option, you might take a look at the RCA USB Wall Plate Charger, a gadget which does exactly what it says on the label.

Following claims that it isn’t doing enough to end worker mistreatment in Chinese factories, Apple has publicly asked the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to “conduct special voluntary audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China.”

The FLA acknowledged Apple’s request almost immediately and began its first inspections at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen this morning. Apple will be hoping that the FLA’s report puts the allegations that it is not doing all it can to bed and proves that working conditions are improving thanks to the company’s work.

ImageXY is an image resizer for OS X, available for 10 dollars on the App Store.

Instagram 2.1, which launched at the end of last week, has fixed up the frankly horrible interface of v2.0, and added in some significant new features. Other things — like the proliferation of scantily-clad ladies and (normally-clad) pets in the “popular” section — remain just the same.

Yup, it’s finally happened: buoyed by the imminent launch of the iPad 3, Apple (AAPL) stock has just hit a historic high of over $500.00 a share, and now is worth a $466.29 Billion, over $70 billion more than the world’s second most valuable company, Exxon Mobil.

That’s amazing, but there’s still plenty of room to grow, believe it or not. In fact, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that Apple could go as high as $1000 per share, at which point, every man, woman and child on this Earth will be an Apple employee, grown to order in special chemical vats in Brazil and China, but designed, as ever, in Cupertino, California.

VLC, the cross-platform play-everything-and-we-mean-everything video client is about to go 2.0 on the Mac. And amongst all the new features is one very welcome change: A completely re-designed interface that makes it look a lot more at home on Apple hardware than the open-source v1.x ever did.