If you’ve ever taken part in a freshman biology class (or seen Pauly Shore’s Bio-Dome, you know what a terrarium is: an enclosed space for keeping animals and plants by simulating that species’ native ecosystem. For example, that heated tank full of sand and rocks you keep your iguana in, or the dark moist basement Leander keeps Cult of Mac’s writers imprisoned in.

The only problem with terrariums is that it can be difficult to keep the conditions inside of them just so for the plant or pet you’re trying to make feel at home. It’s too easy to get the temperature or humidity or light just slightly wrong. But what if your iPad could control all of the fiddly knobs for you?

Deals.CultofMac.com is currently offering two great app bundles this week but both are ending soon. The Mac Productivity Mini-Bundle carries three great apps that will make life in OS X insanely easier and more simple. MenuEverywhere, Trembo, and Cinch will boost your productivity so you can spend less time fussing with the mundane tasks on your Mac and get to the fun stuff. This deal will be available for the next 10 days, saving readers $21 off the retail price. This deal is set to expire in 3 days, so get it now before it’s gone.

Here’s what these apps can do for you:

In a twist that’s left many scratching their heads, Apple’s rival Samsung dropped plans to block iPhone 4S sales on its home turf of South Korea… the one place they could really hope for a reasonable chance at a court win. After a long-running debate, the Android-maker reportedly decided not to battle Apple in its home country because they do not need to “gain more market share in Korea,” a blustery position if there ever was one.

Remember Project Black Mirror, those hackers who claimed to have hooked up an some EEG suction cups, an Arduino and a MacBook Pro to an iPhone 4S and got Siri to read their minds? Lying bastards, the lot of them. And shame on us, we fell for it, at least in part.

Ron Johnson, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, who changed the face of retail with the opening of the first Apple store in 2001, left the Cupertino company at the beginning of this month. Replacing him has become a mammoth task for Apple, according to a new report, with external candidates struggling to meet Johnson’s caliber, which may force the company to promote from within its ranks.

Earlier this summer, Apple introduced the new Reading List feature in Safari 5 as part of Mac OS X Lion’s widescale release. This new feature lets you save web pages until you have time to read them later. It is a handy feature that you might find yourself accessing a lot so the tips today will help you do that as quickly as possible.

OS X already comes with a sizable library of some of nature photography’s most beautiful pictures, curated personally by Steve Jobs for use as wallpapers. But as breathtaking as OS X’s default wallpapers can be, if you have your Mac desktop set to randomize, you’re probably sick to death of them at this point.

The foremost name in beautiful nature photography is here to help you supplement them. Every year, National Geographic holds a photo contest, and this year, they have put up all of their entries in downloadable JPEGs suitable for the desktop, iPhone or iPad.

Oi paulistanos! Cult of Mac writer Nicole Martinelli will be in Sao Paulo and looking to talk all things Apple with you, especially the local scene.

Apple likes to make things as easy as possible to join WiFi networks, especially when the network isn’t password protected. However in one reader’s case this isn’t a good thing but rather a major headache:

Is there a way to RESTRICT joining certain wifi networks to certain OS X user accounts?
When using my MacBook Pro, I have two basic OS X logins. One for known SECURE wifi networks, and one for INSECURE wifi networks. The problem is that Airport settings always remember the INSECURE network, and almost always tries to connect my SECURE OSX login to the INSECURE wifi, at which point Mail (or other apps) start up and shoot my logs/passes across the air for all to see.

One of the advantages to jailbreaking the iPhone — at least for me — is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen that will quickly adjust your device’s settings. There are a number of tweaks that allow you to change your brightness; and toggle 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and more.

It’s not so easy if you’re device isn’t jailbroken, but a new app called IconProject changes that — for just $0.99.

A trademark feature at Apple retail stores all over the world is the Genius Bar. Operated by a group of Apple experts, the Genius Bar allows any Mac or iOS device owner to take their device to their nearest Apple store and get technical help, repairs, or replacements.

Along with Apple experts, the Genius Bar sports a line of MacBook Pros which Apple staff use to diagnose problems, order parts for repairs, check the status of your product’s warranty, and more. In this “post-PC” era, however, those MacBook Pros are set to be replaced by the iPad.

Since the announcement of Siri with the iPhone 4S, countless OS X users have been wondering if Siri will eventually makes it’s way to the Mac. Well, you may not know it, but OS X actually includes a Speech Recognition system called Speakable Items, which is very similar to Siri in many ways. In this video, I’ll show you how to set it up, as well as how to tweak Speakable Items to your liking.

One of the biggest missing features from Apple’s Siri technology is integration with third-party apps. Apple launched Siri on the iPhone 4S with Wolfram Alpha and Yelp integration, but other developers have been unable to fully integrate their apps with Siri to create a compelling, voice-controlled experience.

Apple hasn’t given a confirmation that it will eventually open up Siri to third-party apps, but that hasn’t kept several apps from offering workarounds for Siri integration. What about the apps that were meant for Siri? We’ve collected 10 apps that we want to see integrated with Siri in the near future.

Apple has released iTunes Match beta 3 to developers following the scheduled library reset that took place yesterday, November 11th. The latest beta version of iTunes Match addresses a number of important performance and stability improvements.

Apple originally projected the public launch of iTunes Match for the end of October, but that deadline has passed. Apple is still ironing out the final bugs in its $24.99/year cloud music service.

Fragmentary and occasional reports suggest that Apple has been negotiating with China Mobile for three years without reaching a deal over official support for iPhones on the carrier’s network.

The sticking point: China Mobile wants a percentage of app revenue.

Many US pundits have written that Apple should bend over and do whatever China Mobile wants. Why? Because China Mobile is so ginormous that Apple could make a killing from all those new customers, even if it shared app revenue.

I think they’re flat-out wrong. Apple should hold firm, and refuse to make an exception for China Mobile. Here’s why.

Apple has initiated a replacement program for the first-generation iPod nano due to an overheating issue with the battery inside of the device. The problem was recognized by Apple several years ago and they offered replacements to customers on a case-by-case basis. A number of foreign government agencies in Europe and Asia investigated the defect and last year the Japan trade ministry forced Apple to tell customers about the replacement website on Apple’s Japanese website.

Timbuk2 says its new “aerodynamic” (their words, not mine) Mission Cycling Wallet was inspired by the gearheads over at San Francisco-based Mission Cycling Club — one imagines its inception resulting from a cacophony of complaints about sweaty iPhones and the absence of holes to stash a credit card for that post-ride latte.

First there were posts, then tweets. Now we’ve got a new word to use as a method for sharing bits of ourselves: the cling.

You know about Activity Monitor for your Mac, right? How would you like to have an Activity Monitor for your iPhone too? Something like Activity Monitor Touch might do the trick.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaQrr3rlNyk

Update: Unfortunately, the video has been pulled again.

An interesting music video by Apple Store employees was floating around the internet yesterday, but the video was eventually pulled. (It was that good.)

Now, the video has been re-uploaded to YouTube for all to see. The rap outlines Apple’s customer support steps of service that new retail employees have to learn.

A gold start to anyone that can sit through the whole song.

For the past hour or so it appears that iCloud has been undergoing widespread outages, with many users unable to log into their email accounts and iCloud.com.

Apple has acknowledged the problem, and is working to restore iCloud to its full glory once again.

Business Insider claims to have information on an iPhone 5 prototype from a source that “spent about two weeks” with the device. Citing several details about the alleged prototype, the source says that Apple ended up ditching the iPhone 5 at the last minute. Instead, the iPhone 4S was released as an incremental update to the product line.

While even Business Insider notes that its source has not been completely verified, the provided details do stack up nicely with the rumors we were all hearing leading up the iPhone 4S announcement.

Apple has given one of its executives a slight title change, as noted by The Next Web. Former Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller is now the SVP of Worldwide Marketing.

By dropping the “Product” from Schiller’s official title, Apple could be signaling a number of things. While the change may be for simple cosmetic reasons, it could also indicate the restructuring that’s been taking place in Apple’s executive cabinet during recent months.

Apple has sent out an email to developers saying that yet another iTunes Match reset is scheduled to take place tomorrow at 10 AM PST. Developers that are currently testing iTunes Match will have their libraries erased as Apple readies its servers for the public launch of its music streaming service.

Apple has issued a statement to AllThingsD saying that, while iOS 5.0.1 did addresses issues regarding poor battery performance for iOS devices, battery life bugs still need to be fixed.

After iPhone 4S owners started heavily complaining about poor battery life on iOS 5.0, Apple issued two developer betas before pushing iOS 5.0.1 to all devices yesterday.