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.

A couple of weeks ago, id Software said that if they got 100,000 likes on their Facebook page, they’d release the on-rails iOS version of their upcoming next gen shooter, Rage, free for a week. Well, they’re at 100k likes, so go grab yourself a free game. You can grab Rage HD here and Rage here.

For those of you with a MacBook, an iPhone and an iPad, check out this new iSurge Travel Charging Station from Energizer. It’s an all-in-one charger for all your Apple gadgets that allows you to charge 6 of your devices all at once.

Send a lot of texts and looking to get your first iPhone? AT&T just became a less compelling option, as Ma Bell will be eliminating their $10 a month texting plan on August 21st.

Open up the App Store on your iPhone and you’ll find a plethora of apps that introduce augmented reality to your iPhone, but for now, that’s the only way you can get it. Apple is yet to make augmented reality a native feature, but a recently discovered patent application suggests the technology could one day appear in the built-in Maps app for iOS.

One thing you hear a lot from people who think that Apple has no case against Samsung for ripping off the iPhone and iPad’s designs is that the design of a touchscreen smartphone or tablet is “obvious.”

Well, sure, obvious once Apple did it. But check out what tablets looked like before the iPad: they were all Windows laptops with styluses. Now look at them: slates of glass all designed to be directly interacted with through your fingertips, like a frame into media.

[via Mac Rumors via OP]

You can easily remove apps that you have purchased from the Mac App Store using the new Launchpad feature in Mac OS X Lion.  However, since Launchpad shows all the apps installed on your Mac you will need this tip to show you which ones it can delete.

Apple’s plans to build a new retail store — complete with a glass roof — on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, were approved at the Santa Monica Planning Commission meeting last night — apparently without question.

You probably don’t need to hear it from us that the iPhone 4 is one hell of a video camera and that Final Cut Pro X is awesome in its own right. However, we do want to make sure our readers have access to all the best tools to fullfil their directoral dreams, so if you’re one of those with the burning desire to create the next viral video shot entirely on your iPhone 4, but lack all the tools to get said video made, here’s your chance to unleash your hidden cinematographic potential by winning a Mobile Cinematography Kit from Cult of Mac and FiLMiC Pro. Entering the contest is ridiculously simple. Here’s how to give yourself the chance to win the $400 Grand Prize Package:

Grand Theft Auto III is the very reason I purchased a PlayStation 2 all those years ago, and even to this day it remains one of my favorite games. Imagine my delight, then, when I woke to find it in the Mac App Store this morning.

If you owned an Apple notebook before 2006 when the MagSafe method of charging was introduced, you’ll know that if someone tripped over your power cord, they often took your computer down with them. Now we have the MagSafe, we don’t have to worry about the fool in the coffee shop who isn’t looking where he’s going, because your power cord just pops out with a slight tug.

According to a new Apple patent, MagSafe technology could also be heading to iOS devices to safe them from clumsy feet.

Somewhere, as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries is playing n the background, squadrons of Parrot AR Drones face off against Griffin’s new Helo TC somewhere over the Atlantic (since Parrot is based in France and Griffin in Tennessee, I figured that’s where they’d probably meet up).

We put out the call to action, and the Cult of Mac readership answered. We recently asked you to send us your awesome Mac setups for a completely reader submitted gallery, and you didn’t disapoint.

We got so many setups sent in that we’re going to be posting the results in rounds. Here’s the first round of the Cult of Mac reader submitted setups. Enjoy!

This is one time where the bridesmaid wore white, sort of upstaged the bride and nobody minded.

Besides the Lion USB keys, the only thing new that came about after the Apple Store crashed offline for hours all around the world earlier today? On the Mac Pro page only, you can share the model of Mac Pro you want to select on either Facebook or Twitter.

Totally bizarre. Presumably Apple will roll this out to other Apple Store pages, but it seems like a pretty strange and useless addition to us.

Edit: Apparently, it’s on the iPod Classic page now too. Huh.

This week, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took part in a conference call hosted by Gleacher & Company, an investment firm. No surprises here: someone asked Oppenheimer what Apple thought of the $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google.

Oppenheimer’s response? Classically understated. “$12.5 billion is a lot of money.”

You should probably read “too much money” into that statement for Apple’s snide opinion on the matter.