Back in the 80s, slacking off at the office was no more rare than it is today, but while these days most of our time that we should be working is spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs (thanks for that, by the way), in the 80s, it was more often than not spent gaming on your company PC.

Enter the Boss Key, a wonderful relic of covert 80s slacking. Let’s say you were playing a game on your company PC, and your boss walked by. By simply hitting a key on your button, you could instantly replace what was on the screen with a quasi-official looking spreadsheet, full of boring figures and dry analysis. When your boss left the environs of your cubicle, pushing the Boss Key again would allow you to plunge back into the game.

Neat, huh? Well, think of CovertChirp kind of like a Boss Key for iOS, except it doesn’t help your gaming stay undetected… it helps you covertly tweet.

Google has issued an update to its Google Voice app for the iPhone today to introduce support for devices connected to Sprint, and multi-recipient texting — a feature that has been available in Google Voice for Android more than a month — a multi-line text entry field, and one-touch copy and paste within the Dialer.

We’ve seen some crazy accessories for Apple devices over the past year. Some of them have been so inventive that we’ve marveled at their originality and design, whereas others are so simple and functional that we’re knocking our heads wishing we had thought of something so elegant. Over the past year we’ve tried to cover the most important new accessories for Apple devices, and we’ve narrowed down the favorites to a list of 10 accessories that we think are the best of the best.

Now it’s your turn to tell us if you think we’re right, and let us know which is your favorite Apple accessory of 2011. Take a quick glance at the 10 items below and then vote in our poll to let us know which you think is the true winner.

The world of iOS was set alight when it was realized anybody can utilize Emoji–full colour emoticons, popular mostly in Japan. Suddenly SMS got a lot more interesting! However, with OS X Lion you can also utilize them on your Mac, making for everything from better emails to more colorful documents.

You probably know about TextFree, the iOS app that enables an iPod touch to send texts to mobile phones. If not, your teenager likely is a big fan. On the eve of unveiling a new app letting all iOS devices receive free visual voicemail, Pinger’s marketing chief sat down with us to explain just how huge the original app has become.

Warner Bros. has updated the critically acclaimed Batman Arkham City Lockdown for iOS to add two new Batman skins, iCloud support, and to fix a number of minor bugs. While the new skins are certainly a treat, iCloud support is undoubtedly the most welcome feature for iOS gamers, who can now sync there game between their devices.

Gameloft loves nothing more than throwing a huge $0.99 iOS game sale, so after EA began slashing the price of its own games yesterday, you could almost guarantee that Gameloft wouldn’t be far behind. And it has some treats in store for you this Christmas, including best-sellers like N.O.V.A. 2, Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles, and Spider-Man: Total Mayhem; in addition to some of its latest releases such as BackStab, 9mm, and Gangstar Rio: City of Saints.

Here’s the complete list of Gameloft titles on sale for just $0.99 right now!

Following a report published yesterday that detailed the problems users were having when attempting to download apps from the App Store under iOS 3.1.3, Apple has quietly issued another App Store update today to rectify the issue. Those who are still running this firmware on their iPhone or iPod touch should now be able to download new apps directly to their devices again.

After the critical success of Audyssey’s South of Market dock last year, Audyssey eventually released their next product, the Lower East Side Media Speakers ($250), in October of this year.

This time, Audyssey has dropped the radical approach to design it used for the SOMA dock — with its unusual, back-to-back speaker configuration — in favor of a much more conventional, yet still attractive, form. Audyssey left three things unchanged though: Like the SOMA, the LES speakers exhibit a good deal of quality, and incorporate what Audyssey calls their “Smart Speaker” technology. And like the SOMA, these speakers are a bit pricier than their contemporaries. So the question is: Do they deliver?

Apple has seeded a new built of the OS X Lion 10.7.3 beta to developers in the iOS Dev Center. Build 11D36 of 10.7.3 can be downloaded now by registered developers.

While there are no known issues in this latest beta, Apple does request developers to focus on areas like iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight, and Safari.

Thieves aren’t interested in Blackberries, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want RIM’s PlayBooks tablets.

$1.7 million in Playbooks was recently stolen off a truck on its way from Plainfield, Indianapolis to Ontario, Canada. While the driver took a short pit-stop in Madison County, thieves stole 22 pallets of PlayBooks, totaling 5,200 devices.

The HiddenRadio Bluetooth Speaker is the latest project to be setting Kickstarter on fire, and it’s no wonder why. Just look at it! It’s like Jony Ive designed a speaker in his spare time, and decided to throw it up on Kickstarter just for the hell of it.

Yesterday we told you about AT&T’s decision to back out of its proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile. After facing heated scrutiny and antitrust concerns from both the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice, AT&T couldn’t take the heat any longer.

As part of the deal falling through, AT&T has agreed to pay T-Mobile $3 billion in cash for breakup fees. The money combined with the two carriers’ spectrum and roaming deal makes T-Mobile the only winner of the failed merger.

It’s not quite here yet, but AOC’s got a monitor that we’re really twitching to look at come CES 2012: the e2343Fi, a 23-inch LCD with a neat little twist in the iPhone or iPod compatible dock ensconced in the base.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol hits theaters everywhere tomorrow. Surprisingly, the movie actually got really good reviews and is positioned to be one of the top movies of the holiday season. We went and watched the film this weekend at IMAX and enjoyed the dose of big-budget popcorn entertainment that reminded us how huge action movies used to be a lot more fun than the annoying and cringe-worthy action flicks that hit the screen en masse nowadays. Thanks a lot Michael Bay.

The success of Mission Impossible 4 shouldn’t come as a huge surprise though to anyone who is familiar with the director Brad Bird. Having worked at Pixar for a number of years, Bird has directed popular films such as The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles, as well as leading the creative teams behind Toy Story 3 and Up. Being a Pixar alum, Bird had the opportunity to work with Steve Jobs and remarks that, “he wasn’t about making something that was going to be cool next week, he was about making something that was going to be cool 100 years from now.”

As a fan of Apple, Bird places Apple products throughout his newest movie and uses them as tools for Ethan Hunt and his team to do some really awesome stuff. Here’s some of the coolest uses of Apple technology in Mission Impossible 4 (we’ll try and keep the spoilers at a minimum).

Still haven’t done your Christmas shopping? No need to go on a panicked last-minute expedition to the local gas station like I usually do (“Ho ho ho! Santa brings cartons of cigarettes, Bic lighters and air fresheners!”). Apple has upgraded its free holiday shipping offer in the United States to include next-day shipping for all in-stock products, guaranteeing that as long as you don’t procrastinate past tomorrow, you’ll get your gifts in time for December 25th. Merry Christmas!

[via MacRumors]

Yesterday, we reported about an explosion at a Shanghai iPad 2 factory owned by Foxconn that injured 61 people, some seriously. It’s the second time in the last year an explosion has rocked an iPad 2 factory, and it’s now been seemingly confirmed that both explosions happened for the same reason: a build-up of aluminum dust in the factory area that eventually combusted.

Pulse is one of our favorite personalized news aggregating apps, but the latest app made it even better than ever, adding a redesigned catalogue with sexy coverflow action, an improved UI and even a new Zite-like Smart Dock to supercharge an already great app.

The courtroom battles between Apple and Samsung seem never-ending. The latest chapter: Apple now claims its South Korean patent pal is copying not just smartphones and tablets, but also their cases. During an Australian court hearing, Samsung’s lawyer said Apple believes the cases infringe 10 patents.

One of the more useful features that Apple has introduced to the iTunes Store over the past couple years is the “Complete My Album” feature, which lets you take a single track of an album you like and easily upgrade to owning the full album. The only problem was it only worked for songs, when it seemed like a natural extension to take the functionality to TV shows.

Well, looks like Apple’s finally wised up. Now, if you have a couple of episodes of a show, you can “Complete My Season Pass,” which not only gets you the rest of the episodes of the season of that particular show at a substantial discount over buying the episodes individually. A welcome addition, I think.

[via MacRumors]

Not all of the best apps available for the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad are sold on the App Store. For jailbroken phones, there’s also Cydia, the equivalent of the App Store black market… and for those brave enough to experiment with the very cortex of their device, the benefits of hacking can be great indeed.

In many ways, some of the most innovative and daring development work is happening on Cydia these days, so here’s our list of the best jailbreak apps and tweaks for 2011. Check out our choices below, then help us pick the best jailbreak app or tweak of the year by taking part in our poll!

The NFL has announced that NBC’s broadcasts of wild card Saturday, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl will be available online as well as via Verizon’s NFL Mobile app. This will mark the first time said events were streamed through a mobile platform and it comes as no surprise that their partner Verizon gets the honor. Here’s what Hans Shroeder, NFL senior vice president of media strategy and development had to say about the news:

Having held just one event in 2010, MacTech increased that to seven this year, with events across the U.S. Next year’s going to be even bigger, with 15 events spanning the country from February 16 when MacTech Boot Camp kicks off in Phoenix, Arizona, to December 5 when it wraps up the year in Miami, Florida.

After more than 15 years without paying quarterly dividends to investors, the long drought may be over for Apple fans on Wall Street. A large Apple investor expects the tech giant will announce a “significant” dividend during the first half of 2012.

iOS hacker Pod2g, who has become increasingly famous over the last few weeks thanks to the progress he’s made on an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5, is one step closer to jailbreaking the iPhone 4S. Apple’s latest iPhone was tricky to hack thanks to its new dual-core A5 processor, but Pod2g reports the new chip “is not a problem anymore.”