Cult of Mac

When Apple finally rolls out the iCloud this fall, you’ll be able to backup all of your music on Apple’s own iTunes servers through iTunes Match. If iTunes Match recognizes your tracks, it’ll automatically mirror them in the cloud; otherwise, you’ll be able to manually upload them. If you ever have a devastating system crash, you’ll be able to just slurp them all down again.

But what if you’ve got a massive media collection too big to mirror on Apple’s iCloud servers? What if your Internet connection can’t handle uploading and downloading multiple gigabytes at a time. Well, at least you have iTunes “Back Up To Disc” functionality to fall back on, right?

Wrong. It’s been removed in iTunes 10.4.

iFixit is famous for its gadget tear-downs and repair guides. Every time Apple releases a new piece of tech, iFixit gets hold of it and pulls it apart for our pleasure. The company is now about to branch out — starting up a new cloud-based service called Dozuki that will provide technical documentation to hardware, appliance and chemical manufacturers.

The pranksters at Scoopertino are at it again, with breaking news this week of Apple’s newest dream product, iToke. Getting stoned has never been simpler.

Sporting such features as a USB-powered heating element for instant-on performance, an Apple-sanctioned walled ghanja garden, and iWeed available in 10-packs or by weekly subscription, iToke promises a higher high and munchier munchies.

AT&T’s Vice President has reportedly confirmed to a number of the carrier’s employees that the iPhone 5 is “slated to launch in October,” and that it’s time to get ready for Apple’s fifth-generation device.

Can’t wait to get your hands on Steve Jobs official biography later this year? How about biding your time with a tome of wisdom handed down from The Man himself? Then Steve Jobs Gives 11 Advices To Teenager! by Steve Jobs might be just the book for you!

Google, along with a number of other companies who distribute the Android operating system, could be without the necessary license required to distribute Linux-based software and may therefore be using the operating system unlawfully, potentially at the risk of a complete shutdown of the Android OS.

HP announced this week that it would spin off its PC division as a separate company and terminate its Palm hardware business. The software platform that runs Palm phones and tablets may be licensed in the same way that Android is. But HP is getting out of the PC and mobile computing hardware racket.

How did the industry’s number-one PC maker, and long-time leader in mobile computing come to the decision to exit those businesses?

Did Apple kill HP’s PC, phone and tablet businesses?

The answer is: What, are you kidding?

Want to know why HP is killing off its webOS Device division after releasing just a single product? Let’s leave the abysmal sales numbers of the TouchPad out of things. The fact of the matter is that HP just wasn’t any bloody good at making webOS devices. According to a new report, in fact, the iPad can run a hacked version of webOS twice as fast as the HP TouchPad, despite roughly equivalent hardware.

Mac OS X Lion introduces auto correction another OS feature borrowed from iOS to the Mac. It is something that many people don’t like, because they find it distracts them while they are typing. Although it isn’t supported by every application you can turn it off if you don’t like it.

According to sources for The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s third-generation iPad will come packing an impressive 2048 x 1536 Retina display, and is set to launch in early 2012.

In a bid to rid New York City stores of shoddy counterfeit goods, Apple has reportedly cracked down on a number of businesses that are selling fake accessories — seizing items found in its raids and demanding that companies change their names if they’re too similar to that of the Cupertino company itself.

I’ve been yearning for someone to get this right ever since I wrapped my hands around an iPad 2: the perfect marriage of Smart Cover and back protection for the iPad. Damned if Griffin hasn’t just nailed it with their new IntelliCase ($60).

It isn’t a secret that SMS messaging has always been a ripoff since cellular companies charge excessive fees to transport a tiny insignificant amount of data on their network. Now AT&T is going for your money by killing off their $10 messaging plan that includes 1,000 text messages and what do you get? You get the shaft.

AT&T will stick it to you by allowing you to choose from AT&T’s new “streamlined” messaging plans: $20 for unlimited messaging or go without a plan and pay $0.20 per SMS message.  We’d like to call it what it is — a big scam and one you should refuse to accept.

This sounds like what people who don’t live in California think people here do on dates:  take a stroll around the Apple retail store in Palo Alto, then have some sushi and a little conversation.

Except that this isn’t a date, it’s the meeting of two businessmen. The Wall Street Journal recounts how Peter Bell decided to court iAd chief Andy Miller away from Apple in an afternoon they spent hanging out together.

I stumbled across this photo and it’s been bothering me ever since.

The cover for a Romanian magazine for a special issue dedicated to family portraits, it’s not exactly the Euro-style nudity that bugs me. Maybe it’s the hand positions. Or the soggy-looking diaper. Or something about the fetal position of the cat on naked mom?

Anyway, it needs a caption. Something funny. Better clean. Have at it!

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Wondering why HP is nuking its PC business from orbit, despite being the biggest PC maker in the world? Wonder no longer.

Reports about Best Buy and Walmart returning huge numbers of unsold TouchPad tablets to Hewlett Packard appear to be strikingly true.

Speaking on a conference call right after dropping the bombshell that HP is killing its webOS phones and tablets, HP CEO Leo Apotheker admitted that his company’s iPad competitor is not selling at all, despite hefty price cuts.

The company hoped the TouchPad would quickly establish itself as the number two to the iPad, Apotheker said, but it hasn’t made a dent at all.

Samsung’s in trouble. The Korean electronics giant is being sued by Apple in just about every market for copying Apple’s iOS, iPhone and iPad designs… and Apple’s winning. Worse, Samsung’s biggest mobile partner, Google, just bought out one of their main smartphone competitors, Motorola, for $12.5 billion. Now that Google has an Android hardware team in-house, how much longer will third-party smartphone makers like Samsung be given equal access to the Android operating system?

It’s a tight spot, and Samsung knows it’s in trouble. Samsung boss Lee Kun-Hee reacted to the news of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobiity by telling top managers on Monday to “boost software prowess, patent pools and talent,” as well as seek out opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. Samsung — probably correctly — thinks this will be a quicker way to boost the prowess of their own in-house mobile OS, Bada.

Well, bada bing, bada boom, because a huge acquisition opportunity may have just presented itself. After a single round, HP just threw in the towel on webOS, a mobile operating system they purchased along with Palm back in 2010 for $1.2 billion.

We’re just spitballing here, but maybe Samsung should buy webOS and the Palm business out from under HP? Here’s why it could be a good move.

Wow, this took me completely surprise: mere minutes after confirming that they were in talks to spin off their PC business, HP has totally thrown in the towel on their mobile strategy. They’ve just announced that they are shutting down their WebOS Device business.

Unreal. That’s just a month and a half after releasing the HP Touchpad, which was supposed to relaunch webOS as a serious contender to Apple’s mobile OS crown. Now HP’s just killing off that side of the business in total.

In a move similar to when IBM sold off its PC and laptop business sold it to Lenovo, HP is reportedly on the verge of spinning off its PC business in order to focus on cloud-based software and enterprise services.

That means the world’s largest computer maker may be about to exit the game entirely, and small wonder: Apple’s been beating them to a bloody pulp. Making Windows PCs is a low margin game, and Apple’s pretty much the only company in town that isn’t experiencing negative growth.

Want a free iPhone? Don’t care that it’ll be two generations old in just a month or two? Rush on over to Best Buy Mobile on Monday, August 22nd and you can get an iPhone 3GS completely free with “two-year activation.”

The Best Buy Mobile offer has all the hallmarks of an inventory clearance to me, which seems to insinuate that BBM doesn’t exactly think the iPhone 3GS will continue in its role as the entry-level iPhone.

Who’s ready to bite the bullet?

[via Technobuffalo]

It’s been theorized for a while that Microsoft would try to ape Apple’s success with the Mac App Store when they release Windows 8, but until now, it’s just been conjecture. Now here we are, on the other side of the rumor.

“So you just shake the accelerometer and Sarah Palin’s breasts start bouncing? LOL! Gross!”

– President Obama to Vice President Joe Biden at the Outer Oval Office on Saturday, July 16th, 2011, according to the White House Flickr feed. Via 9to5Mac

Anyone got any better ideas about what Obama might be saying to Biden, and more importantly, what iPhone app they’re using? Let us know in the comments.

Following the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to allow airlines to use tablets as electronic flight bags, Delta has become the first airline to issue iPads to its pilots for in-flight access to equipment manuals, flight charts, and Wi-Fi.

Another day, another lawsuit involving our favorite Cupertino company. This time Apple is the defendant, with Software Restore Solutions filing a complaint that claims Apple copied its technology with the Disk Utility tool built into the Mac OS X operating system.