LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – In the aftermath of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, there are going to be hundreds of awards — some official, some decidedly not-so — declaring the best product of CES.

Why wait? We can already tell you what we think the best product of CES is: Verizon Wireless’s network, which is the only one that has not been frickin’ smeared into jelly by the insane data and voice demands of the show’s technical elite.

TomTom’s navigation apps for the iPhone and iPad are going social with Facebook and Twitter integration that will allow you to navigate to your friends, places, and events more easily. Version 1.10 of the official app, which will launch during Q1 2012, prides itself on using social networks as a source for turn-by-turn navigation.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — Those studly hex bolts, that rubberized exterior, the thick mass of battery — Mophie’s new Power Station Pro was obviously designed with one idea in mind: keeping your iDevice-laden butt juiced out in the middle of nowhere.

Apple’s iPhone is now available on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon in the U.S., but T-Mobile customers are still waiting for the popular smartphone to come to them. According to the company’s CEO, Philipp Humm, the reason the device still hasn’t arrived is T-Mobile’s unique 3G band, which isn’t used by other carriers.

Foxconn Electronics and Pegatron Technology have reportedly begun production of Apple’s next-generation iPad 3. The new device is expected to boast a high-resolution Retina display from Sharp, according to one report, with a launch scheduled for early March.

Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing, Greg Joswiak, was spotted roaming the show floor at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, despite no official appearance from the Cupertino company. Joswiak admitted he was there “scouting the competition,” but it seems he’s not the only one. According to one report, more than 250 Apple employees altogether are in attendance this year.

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World of Goo has been a huge success since it hit the iPhone back in April 2010, and its developers have just announced the title has now attracted over one million downloads in the App Store and the Mac App Store.

Apple has confirmed its rumored $500 million acquisition of Israeli flash memory firm Anobit. Reports started circulating last month that the Cupertino company was interested in purchasing Anobit for its flash storage prowess. It was concluded that Apple was looking to become a major player in the flash storage industry.

QuickTime X in OS X includes quite a few hidden gems to make previously tedious tasks simple. One great example is it’s built in ability to rip audio from nearly any video file. In this video, that’s exactly what I’ll show you how to do.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – It’s day one at CES. The show floor just opened. We ran down to check out the goodies. We’ve got Snooki doing a duck face, cool Aviator headphones from Skull Candy, and plenty more.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — The Swivl ($159) is like a mini non-union cameraman who just wants to record you all day long — no lunch or bathroom breaks needed.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Texting on the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen is about as good as you can expect, but wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to fit a full-size keyboard in there for good measure?

Celluon thinks there’s a way to do just that with the Prodigy, a Juice Pack-style battery case for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s with one interesting trick up its sleeve: it can project an interactive infrared keyboard onto any flat surface.

In theory, this means effortless typing as long as you can prop your iPhone up on a table or desk. The reality, though? Stick to texting.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — One trend we weren’t expecting to see at CES was the enormous amount of ultra-portable speakers every company is trying to sell. The type that look like a soda can cut in half that pops up to reveal a speaker that has the magical “unparalleled sound quality” all their makers brag about. For over twenty years Behringer has produced professional audio products, but have only recently decided to enter the consumer space. So what does a high-quality audio company do to make themselves stand out in a market saturated with mediocre speaker products? Make a really really nice ultra-portable speaker? WRONG! They go and create the biggest iPod Dock ever that makes those minature docks look miserably insignificant.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – This Chinese case maker, the Shenzhen Reflying Corporation, is already hyping their apparently incredible iPad 3 cases at their iLounge booth.

Unfortunately, upon being asked to see one of the cases, Reflying’s representative sheepishly admitted that they didn’t have any inside intel on the iPad 3, or any prototypes knocking about. Instead, they apparently want everyone to know that when the iPad 3 comes out, their company will continue to boldly figure a way to wrap vinyl, rubber, leather and latex around a whole new generation of tablet, and not, in fact, immediately disappear in a puff of vapor, their purpose on this green earth completed.

And thus, the eternal wheel of CES continues to slowly and inexorably revolve.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – A week or so ago, I quipped that come CES, we’d probably see Samsung continuing its pathological plagiarism of years-old iOS designs by unveiling a new Galaxy smartphone modeled after the Apple Newton PDA.

Looks like I wasn’t that far off. Check out the monstrous beast of a phone that is the Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s a 5.3-inch smartphone with a frickin’ built-in stylus, coming to the States in February.

Here’s what it looks like side-by-side with an iPhone. You seriously can’t make this stuff up. It’s beyond parody.

Apple has seeded a new build of Lion 10.7.3 to registered developers in the Dev Center. Following the release of iOS 5.1 beta 3 yesterday, Build 11D42 of Lion 10.7.3 is now available for developers to download and test.

XtremeMac has unveiled three InCharge docking stations for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch at CES today. The InCharge Duo Plus, InCharge X3 and InCharge X5 multi-dock chargers provide 10 watts of energy per dock for simultaneously charging multiple iOS devices at once.

With CES in full effect, it’s been an extremely busy couple of days for Android. In fact, I was so absorbed in CES news, I forgot to post yesterday’s Android roundup (I bet you thought it was going to go away). Good news is we’re still here, and for anyone interested in what has been going on in the world of Android, we encourage you to head over to Cult of Android. Here’s a recap of some of the news-making headlines today.

Apple’s VP of worldwide iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing, Greg Joswiak, has been spotted on the show floor at CES “scouting the competition.” paidContent caught up with the Apple exec in Las Vegas at this week’s 2012 CES convention.

Eastman Kodak has announced its plans to sue Apple and HTC for violating several of its patents relating to digital imaging. The once-profitable camera company claims that Apple’s iOS devices and HTC’s smartphones infringe on Kodak patents for transmitting images digitally and between devices.

Today Amazon launched an iPad-optimized Kindle Store web app. Visiting amazon.com/iPadKindleStore on the iPad will now take you to Amazon’s new web portal for buying ebooks from Apple’s tablet.

Once you’ve logged into your Amazon account, you’ll be able to browse and purchase ebooks in Mobile Safari on the iPad. Your purchases will then be pushed by Amazon to your Kindle device or Kindle iOS app.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – The remarkable success of Mophie’s Juice Pack Air has inevitably resulted in a locust storm of battery case also-rans at this year’s CES, but of the lot of them, the Boost Case Hybrid is the one we like best. Why? Because Boost Case understands that you don’t always want to carry around all that extra battery. They just want to make it easy for you when you do.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – According to maker iDevices, who made news last year with an odd Bluetooth cooking thermometer called the iGrill, the iShower’s entire raison d’être is to remove the “oh crap!” factor of dropping your iOS device into the shower, sink or toilet when all you want to do is listen to some tunes.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Here’s the secret business of most polyurethane iPhone screen protectors: they know you’re not going to be able to get it on perfectly aligned without bubbles or pieces of grit underneath. In fact, they’re counting on you making a mash of things, and having to buy an expensive replacement.

But that business model is a double-edged sword, thinks Pure Gear. Sure, make the process of applying a polyurethane shield difficult and you might sell first-time buyers two instead of one the first time. But since the process is such a pain in the butt, and so hard to get right, many consumers never try again after the first time they mess it up.

That’s where Pure Gear’s incredible new shield applying tech comes in. Called the PureTek Roll-On, Pure Gear’s solution makes applying a polyurethane shield to your iPhone as easy as rolling a new coat of paint on the wall.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — After recently winning Apple’s “App of the Year” award, the popular photo-editing app, Snapseed, is making its way to the Mac to provide the same amazing functionality for OS X that iPhone and iPad users have grown to love. We had a chance to meet up with Nik Software (developers of Snapseed) and see the app in action, and we have to say, we’re pretty stoked that the Mac is getting this awesome app.