Microsoft has been showing if its upcoming Windows 8 operating system at its BUILD conference in California this week, and while I may be completely dedicated to my Mac, I can’t help but think Windows 8 looks pretty darn nice.

We’ve already showed you how to install the Developer Preview on a Boot Camp partition on your Mac, but there is an easier method for those of you who just want to play around. In this how-to, we’ll take you through the setup for installing Windows 8 in a virtual machine — in just four simple steps.

VMware released version 4 of Fusion for the Mac earlier this week. Fusion 4 virtualization software will let Mac users run Windows, Linux and now Mac OS X Lion along with the native Mac OS X operating system. VMWare claims that the new version if optimized for Mac OS X Lion and that it offers over 90 new features. The biggest new feature is the apps ability to virtualize Mac OS X Lion.

A leaked image from AT&T’s internal inventory system published today by Engadget shows something interesting — a white iPhone 4s. The listing appears under a handful of other iPhone models.

This mountain view is the nicest thing you’ll see in the Windows 8 Developer Preview that Microsoft recently released. The rest made me throw up a bit in my mouth – especially the Metro UI. I’m not sure I’m ready to think that different yet.

The mountain scene above was produced after Windows 8 booted and after it was idle for a short period. I was running Windows 8 as a Parallels Desktop 7 virtual machine on my 13-inch MacBook Air. I’ll tell you how you can do that yourself at the end of the gallery.

I spent a couple of  hours exploring Windows 8 and this gallery is a broad overview of the changes that Windows 7 users have to look forward too.

After spending all this time with Windows 8 I grabbed my MacBook Air and hugged it tight. I’m so glad that I have Mac OS X Lion and not Windows 8.

Today, your iPhone is a gadget, a mere consumer appliance. But your future iPhone will become increasingly human. You’ll have conversations with it. The phone will make decisions, prioritize the information it presents to you, and take action on your behalf — rescheduling meetings, buying movie tickets, making reservations and much more.

In short, your iPhone is evolving into a personal assistant that thinks, learns and acts. And it’s all happening sooner than you think, thanks to the guy pictured above.

MuscleNerd has announced the imminent release of a major update to RedSn0w. The update is expected to be released sometime over the weekend before Monday and it will bring some nice features to the popular jailbreaking utility.

With the release of Windows 8 for developers, many people have been trying to install Microsoft’s new operating system in a virtual machine with little success. Fortunately, Apple’s own Boot Camp application not only runs Windows 8, it runs it far better than most virtual machines will. In this video, I’ll show you how to set up Windows 8 on your Mac with Boot Camp.

What’s got a folding boom, Jabra’s most-advanced noise-canceling and wind noise-reduction technology and a massive ear cushion even that princess in the pea story would be comfortable with? You guessed it (probably because it’s in the headline) — the just-announced Jabra Supreme Bluetooth headset.

We think this is pretty cool — the iHome iDM15 ($99) is a set of Bluetooth-equipped stereo speakers that include a microphone so they can be used as a speakerphone.

In the U.S. you may have trouble getting Al Jazeera on cable, but now you can check it out on your iPad using Flipboard.

We’re big fans of Belkin’s products, especially the fantastic N750 Dual-Band N+ Router and the Conserve Insight energy meter.

Now you can get these gadgets, and everything else Belkin makes, for 50% off using a simple coupon code.

Google has updated Google Chrome for Mac with support for features in OS X Lion, like full-screen mode and disappearing scrollbars. This specific release has been available to members of the browser’s developer channel since August, but Google has just now released it as a stable upgrade for everyone.

If you keep up to date on your Apple news, then you hear the numbers. Market share, market share, market share. It’s always about comparing Apple and Android’s dominance.

We’re all familiar with how the big players are doing in terms of market share. Companies like Google, Apple, Samsung, RIM, Nokia and HTC make the headlines every day. But what about the 36% of the mobile market that doesn’t get mentioned? That chunk of the cell phone space usually gets dubbed as the “other” part of your typical analyst graph. The graphs basically say, “Nothing to see here, move on.”

Just who are these no-name phone makers that are outselling all of the industry’s ‘top dogs’?

Well, that’s certainly interesting. Target has just declared the iPad 2 in its end-of-life. Interesting, because it implies that Apple’s about to release the iPad 3, but ultimately, more likely some database enterers wishful thinking or a screw up than anything else.

When the Mac App Store first came out, any app that you already had downloaded onto your machine outside of the App Store was reported as “Installed.”

Apple’s made a new change to the way the MAS handled things. Now, instead of previous apps being unavailable to purchase because they are already installed, you get a warning that asks you if you want to buy the software all over again.

I still wish Apple would figure out a way to at least give devs the option of porting over their existing customer bases to the Mac App Store, but I guess this is nice: at least it warns me if I’m about to buy the same app twice.

[via MacWorld]

One of the cool things about Apple’s new Thunderbolt I/O standard is its daisy chaining abilities. You can string one Thunderbolt device through another one to a single Thunderbolt port with no degradation in speed or quality.

So let’s say you’ve got Apple’s old 27-inch Cinema Display, the one that connects through Mini DisplayPort. You may have gotten the notion in your head when Apple started shipping out Thunderbolt versions of the Cinema Display of daisy chaining them together. After all, why not? Other Thunderbolt peripherals can handle a Mini DisplayPort monitor. 54 horizontal inches of muilti-display splendor should easily be at your fingertips!

Think again.

Cult of Mac Presents… “Jonny Ive And The Vinyl Wood Sticker.” A humorous play in one part by Mr. Giles Turnbull.

INT.DAY.

(Jonathan Ive’s secret underground lair. Prototype Apple products litter the desks – an iPhone 5, an iPhone 6, and an iPhone 7. Versions 3, 4 and 5 of the iPad. An iPad mini. An iPhone Pro. A MacPro nano. An AppleTV that’s actually a TV. A bunch of other things that don’t even have names yet. Most of these products are partly disassembled, with wires and circuit boards hanging out at odd angles. Between them are soldering irons, bits of wire, aluminum and duct tape.)

(Standing amid all the chaos, with shirtsleeves rolled up, a pencil behind his ear, and eye protectors pushed up on top of his head, is Jonathan Ive. He’s peering at the screen of a MacBook Air and frowning. He picks up the phone.)

IVE: Get me the Design Abuse Team. Now!

Too often, the image of older people and technology comes with seniors using bowling with the Wii, fumbling with web cams or being ripped off by Facebook scams. A new book about learning the iPad appears to feed into that misconception: use small words and speak very, very slowly.

Apple is trying to fast track the training of retail employees in the proper use of iOS 5 and iCloud ahead of their early October debuts, Cult of Mac has learned.

I liked this photo, which Sameli Kujala posted to the Cult of Mac Flickr pool.

On the right, Mac OS 8 on CD-ROM, packaged in its huge cardboard box. Vintage 1997 stuff. In the centre, today’s diminutive Lion USB stick – which you don’t even have to use if you download direct from the Mac App Store. And on the left, a bottle of champagne, adding suitably classy balance to the whole scene.

If you have a great photo of your smart Apple stuff – retro or modern or both together – and you’d like to share it with your fellow Cult of Mac readers, do send it in: [email protected]

(Photo used with permission. Thanks Sameli!)

The fallout from Apple’s lengthy battles with Samsung has started. The tech giant has inked a contract with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce the A6 and successors. The move ends an exclusive deal with the Korean Samsung to produce chips for Apple’s iOS devices, according to a Friday report.

Developer Moritz Haarmann put together this neat experimental “fluid layout” concept for retail on the iPad.

The introduction of the Mac App Store earlier this year has seen a boost in big-name games coming to our Macs. Rockstar Games has re-released its awesome Grand Theft Auto titles, Aspyr brought us (but we didn’t want it!) Duke Nukem Forever, and now Feral Interactive is set to release Batman: Arkham Asylum on October 13.

The news just never seems to be good for RIM. Thursday, the Canadian company announced it sold just 200,000 PlayBook tablets during the last quarter. Today, an analyst predicts the iPhone 5 will “steamroll” RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 7 smartphones.

If you’re unhappy that Apple is quashing your favorite MobileMe feature in the move over to iCloud, now is the time to do something about it. The Cupertino company has already stated that it will consider bringing features back to iCloud if enough people ask for them, and to help things along, Command Guru has started an iCloud Petition that allows you to vote to save your favorite MobileMe feature.