Before the iPhone came along in 2007 and changed the way in which we use mobile devices, touchscreen smartphones were very different to what we have today. They were big, clunky and slow; it was hard to find and install applications for them; and every one of them came with a damn stylus that was either lost or broken within the first six months.

Things are completely different now, though, thanks to Apple’s smartphone. But it took a long time for us to get here. This awesome video from CNET UK offers an animated journey through the history of the iPhone and how Apple’s revolutionary device was born.

Did you just buy the new iPhone 4S with the fancy camera that takes incredible pictures? Even if you don’t have the iPhone 4S you probably still need some awesome software to spice up your pictures before sharing them with the world. Today, Cult of Mac and StackSocial are giving away 5 copies of our Mac Photo Effects FamilyPack Bundle.

What’s  awesome about this contest is that the five winners of this contest aren’t just getting one copy each of FX Photo Studio Pro and Color Splash Pro, but they’re getting FIVE licences of each app! Share the joy with your friends and family so that their photo’s will look a lot nice too. This is your chance to be a hero and share some awesome software with your friends and family for free.

Entering the contest is simple. Here are the rules:

Apple is all about the cutting edge, but in the real world people use older computers that may not have the latest and greatest software. Here’s how to use an old Mac with a new iPhone:

My mom is about to get an iPhone for the first time. She has an older iMac that only supports Leopard, no Snow Leopard or Lion, so she cannot sync with her pc at home. The new iOS 5 allows her to get an iPhone that does not need to sync to a pc. How can she get her photos off her new iPhone 4S onto her existing iMac to load into iPhoto? Will the iMac recognize the device as a camera source even if otherwise unsupported by her version of Leopard and iTunes?

Toby

Apple has updated its website this morning introduce a ‘Remembering Steve‘ page which shares a selection of tributes left by Apple fans from all over the world since Steve passed away on October 5.

As Apple’s stores nationwide prepare to close for a few hours on Wednesday to remember Steve Jobs, many are removing the memorials that sprang up on their windows and doorsteps. The memorial at Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, for example, was removed last week.

Not so the Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif. — Steve’s hometown. Quite the opposite, the number of Post-It tributes has grown to the point that both windows are now almost completely covered. The picture above was snapped just a few hours ago on Tuesday evening.

It’s a nice tribute. Let’s hope they stay up for a while longer. Here are a few more pictures:

Let’s just say it: any smartphone that recognizes my lineage by calling me a queen is right as rain in my book. (Namely because it saves those tiring discussions about “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” etc.)

The learning curve with Apple’s new iPhone 4S voice activated personal assistant Siri may or may not be steep – depending on your point of view – but a  Twitter feed launched Oct. 15 compiling the more unusual responses is exceedingly droll. 

Since we posted about AirBeam’s free giveaway (it’s usually $4), developer Heiko Straulino has been busy improving his powerful iDevice surveillance app — and the newest update, released over the weekend, now let’s users stream and record audio as well, and adds an audio detection feature similar in function to motion detection.

During today’s fourth fiscal quarterly earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the massive pile of cash that Apple has in the bank. As it turns out, about two-thirds of Apple’s available cash is currently held overseas.

Apple is known for being incredible conservative when it comes to spending. The company very rarely makes high-profile buyouts, and internal operations are streamlined for efficiency. Holding money offshore allows Apple to defer taxes until the money is brought back to the United States.

Teams in the National Football League are experimenting with iPads to substitute unwieldy playbooks, even though they are forced to turn them off before taking to the field because of NFL rules.

The Baltimore Ravens, for example, have sidelined their old school three-ring binders with iPads. Team organizers bought 120 of them to give players better access to a wealth of info – film sessions, nutrition guides and team calendars.

During today’s Q4 earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer talked about how “pervasive” iPhone rumors hurt Apple’s fiscal business. While nearly every product saw a significant increase in sales for the fourth fiscal quarter, the iPhone saw a lackluster 17.07 million iPhones sold. That’s 21% year over year growth. The iPad saw 166% year over year growth.

It’s typical for product sales to taper off right before a refresh, but this last fiscal quarter’s iPhone sales were even lower than what Apple expected. Oppenheimer blamed the rumor mill for hurting Apple’s fiscal business with regards to the iPhone.

To honor Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Apple retail stores around the U.S. will close for around 90 minutes on Wednesday, October 19.

From 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (PST) tomorrow, Apple’s iconic stores will be shuttered so employees can take part in a memorial service for Jobs. They’ll watching a live broadcast of the event being held at an outdoor amphitheater at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. Apple employees outside the U.S. will be able to view a re-broadcast of the celebration.

Reuters reports that in preparation for the closure, stores across California aren’t accepting online bookings for Wednesday morning, either for tech-support or tutorials.

Via Reuters

Apple today announced its most recent quarterly earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter. Despite missing Wall Street projections for the first time since 2002, Apple saw incredible growth in multiple areas, including record-breaking sales for the Mac.

760,000 more Macs were sold than any other previous quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that sales were largely fueled by MacBook Air and MacBook Pro sales, with growth in Asia also contributing to the Mac’s continued success.

There were rumors flying around months ago that Apple was looking to buy Dropbox. The popular cloud storage service has made a name for itself as one of the most relied-upon wireless sync solutions in the consumer market.

The rumors were true. Apple did want to buy Dropbox, so much so that Steve Jobs himself offered the startup a nine-digit acquisition offer. Dropbox said no to the offer, so Apple created iCloud.

Apple today announced its earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter, with $28.27 billion in revenue and $6.62 billion in profit. In Q4, Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones, 11.12 million iPads, and 4.89 million Macs.

This is the first time in years that Apple has missed its Wall Street predictions. However, Apple surpassed its own estimates of $25 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter.

Want to see just how good the iPhone 4S is as a video camera? Yeah, so did this guy. So he made a side-by-side comparison – and the results show the 4S is a pretty impressive piece of video recording kit.

Here’s a new exercise workout tip courtesy of Motorola: next time you’re considering buying that 8,000 calorie heart attack on a bun, instead layout your cash on an iPod Nano clone that costs $100 more than the real thing. You’ll surely work up a sweat kicking yourself for buying that new MotoACTV watch.

It never ceases to amaze me about what people will do to get your attention so today’s video tidbit shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all we’ve seen MacBooks, iPhones and iPads go through all kinds of hell on the wrong end of a gun and even a PT Cruiser.

So it shouldn’t surprise you that someone has taken the iPhone 4S and shot it with a .50 caliber incendiary round. He even goes so far as to ask Siri if it is bullet proof. See how Siri replied and how well the iPhone 4S did or not after the break.

Color Uncovered is a neat little educational app for kids and grown-ups, all about the weird and mysterious science of color.

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs passed away before the hugely successful launch of the iPhone 4S last Friday, but we’re certain he had lots of time to play around with it while it was in testing at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. If you’d like to use your shiny new device to pay your respects to its creator, these Steve tribute cases that were found in Thailand should do the trick.

The BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones wanted to find out which smartphone was the best listener, so he conducted a quick test of his own.

He spoke the same text into a Siri-equipped iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and compared the transcribed results.

Despite past protests against a smaller iPad, Apple appears to be moving ahead with plans to introduce a smaller iPad possibly as early as 2012. Two iPad display firms reportedly have sent samples to Apple for approval. If true, today’s report would lend credence to an earlier Wall Street report that the tech giant is setting its sights on Amazon’s $199 7-inch Kindle Fire.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hckrig2BwNY

Remember Jontahan Mann? He’s the YouTube singing sensation behind the ‘Song A Day’ project, which has seen him sing songs the iPhone 4’s ‘antennagate‘ issue, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak. For his latest track, Mann teams up with Siri for a wonderful duet.

Isn’t it just beautiful?

[via Daring Fireball]

Sometimes is seems as though Samsung puts its greatest efforts into causing a ruckus with Apple’s legal team. The Korean electronics giant is already involved in countless legal spats with Apple for allegedly copying the iPhone and iPad, but it continues to closely follow Apple’s products… or just rip them off completely.

It’s USB charger, for example, is an exact replica of Apple’s, only in black instead of white. It recently littered one its retail stores with a bunch of Apple icons for the App Store and Safari. And its latest trick? Using an iPhone screenshot to sell its Galaxy Player 5.0 media device.

How do you sell a security product to owners of devices that have no real security problem? You get into hand-holding business. That’s what it’s like for Lookout Mobile Security, a San Francisco, Calif. firm unveiling Tuesday the free Lookout for iPhone app. Kevin Mahaffey, co-Founder and CTO, Lookout Mobile Security, says his new app is all about positive reinforcement.

Apple pushed out another update to its Apple TV yesterday which was set to fix a number of bugs in the 4.4 firmware, however, version 4.4.1 comes with a major issue of its own, so we’re suggesting you ignore this update for the time being.