Cult of Mac

We close out another week of deals with two iMac offers and a bargain on the Magic Mouse. First up is a number of iMacs from the Apple Store, starting with a 3.06GHz iMac running an i3 processor and 22-inch screen for $929. Next is an iMac bundle perfect for photo-editing. The offer includes an iMac running a 3.2GHz Dual i3 processor with a 27-inch screen, plus Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac – just $1,399. Finally, a deal on a wireless Magic Mouse for just $45.

Along the way, we also check out iPhone and iPad cases, as well as accessories and software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple has just published a new transition guide for MobileMe customers looking forward to switching to iCloud.

The good news? Apple has confirmed that you’ll still get access to web apps for iCloud Mail, Contracts, Calendar and Find My iPhone. The bad? Say goodbye to iWeb, Gallery and iDisk.

Let’s put Apple’s golden touch in perspective, because it’s a super power eerie and miraculous enough that it makes competitors puke in mortal terror (hey, it happens!). Consider this: Apple makes more from selling one Mac than HP does from selling seven PCs.

Apple has initially ordered 15 million iPhone 5 handsets from two manufacturers say reports. If correct, the first-month figure is about five times the number of iPhone 4 units the Cupertino, Calif. company sold during the same four-week period in 2010. Could the iPhone 5 be Apple’s first truly international launch, or merely the launch where supply is least lopsided compared to demand?

UPDATE: I totally screwed this one up. When my contact, TuneUp founder Raza Zaidi, told me iTunes in the cloud has only 20% of the all the music listed in Gracenote’s big database of music, I interpreted it to mean that the upcoming iTunes Match service would mirror only a fraction of most music libraries. What I failed to realize was that 20% of music in iTunes represents the most popular 20%. The remaining 80% is all the music in the long tail. So when Apple rolls out iTunes Match in the fall, it will indeed likely mirror most music libraries, just as Apple claims. In a clarifying note, Zaidi says matches will likely be 95% or higher. In addition, the Get Album Artwork feature in iTunes isn’t powered by Gracenote, as the post implies. Sorry for the mistakes. Teach me to post before my morning coffee.

When iTunes Match goes live in September, Apple promises to instantaneously match any of the tracks in your iTunes library to the iCloud… as long as it already has your music in its mega music library. What Apple hasn’t said is that as much of 80% of your music might not be recognized by iTunes Match… and the only way to get that music into the iCloud will be to spend days manually uploading gigabytes at a time.

Those of you who are yet to experience Team Fortress 2 are missing out… but you no longer have an excuse not to give it a go — Valve just made the game free to play… forever! That makes it easier than ever for you to come play with Cult of Mac!

Although it hasn’t seen an update since last year, the Mac Pro isn’t dead… it’s just been getting a little beauty rest before it debuts next month post-Lion, boosting a new 16 core configuration capable of searing the melted physiognomy to even the most cynical benchtester’s skull.

RIM, Samsung, Asus? Time to give up. Your belief that there’s a tablet market is wrong. There is no tablet market, according to the latest comScore results. There is only an iPad market.

This squiggle of silicon caulk might look like the laziest Kickstarter project ever, but it’s actually deceptively clever. Meet the Infinite Loop. Not only is it a great name, but it’s an iPad and iPhone stand that can easily be reshaped into any form that might be called for.

For years now, a prominent analyst has predicted Apple will get into the high-definition TV business. While that makes about as much sense as my idea for an iToaster, the rumor is back again, this time piggy-backing on the iCloud.

A worker for China’s largest mobile carrier has confirmed that the iPhone 5 will launch on China Mobile in September. What does that mean for Americans? An iPhone 5 as early as August.

Tongue waggling out of a gaping hole in his cheek, Conan O’Brien and his video production team have given a strong endorsement of Apple’s contentious reboot to their professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X.

Shortly after Apple released the first beta of iOS 5 earlier this month, some users went hunting through its internals and found references to the next-generation iPad and iPhone. However, there was one thing missing — and that was any mention of a new iPod touch.

The news led some to believe that Apple may delay the launch of the fifth-generation device until 2012, but it seems those first perusing the iOS 5 files just didn’t look hard enough.

Components makers in the supply chain for Apple’s MacBook Air are set to “run in full gear” during July as the company prepares for the upcoming launch of the latest model.

As some of you may already be aware from the previous posts I’ve written, I’m a huge fan of first-person shooters. While I’m certain I could never pluck up the courage to handle real arsenal, the number of precious years I’ve wasted on FPS games is frightening.

One of my favorite first-person shooters for iOS is Gameloft’s N.O.V.A. 2, which has just dropped into the Mac App Store, and will no doubt ensure my family don’t see much of me this weekend.

Developers who weren’t able to attend this year’s WWDC can catch up with over 100 WWDC session videos, which are now available through Apple’s Dev Center.

We haven’t seen too many manufacturers come out with a weather-resistant iPhone bicycle mount (what, no iPhone users ride bicycles in Seattle? C’mon, people). Luckily, Bracketron just announced their All-Weather Soft Case Bike Mount. In this case, the name literally says it all.

Yesterday, we published extracts from a press release where PhantomAlert, an app that helps drivers avoid all kinds of potential tickets, boasted that its DUI checkpoints were staying put and that it had “defied” the senators who convinced Apple to ban DUI info.

CEO Joe Scott wrote to us, essentially retracting the whole release, also stating for the record that the company does not condone or encourage drinking and driving.

The latest major patch update to Mac OS X 10.6.8 just got pumped through Software Update, and this is one patch everyone with a Mac is going to want to make as soon as possible: without it, you won’t be able to upgrade to 10.7 Lion when it is released on the Mac App Store next month.

If you’re looking for something to watch tonight, tune into cable channel CNBC at 9PM Eastern to watch CNBC Titans. Tonight, they’ll be airing an unauthorized Steve Jobs profile not only tracing the iconic Apple CEO’s work on the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad, but also his work at NeXT and at Pixar. Interviewed for the program are ex-CEO John Sculley, Guy Kawasaki and — blink and you might miss him — Cult of Mac’s own Leander Kahney!

Check out the full details here. Come back and tell us what you think after the program airs tonight!

Nailing down the design and functionality of a Bluetooth headset seems like it’d be a fairly easy task. Yet if you’ve ever been in the market for a new headset, you’ve probably noticed that their aren’t many models out there that offer great design and functionality at a fair price. Jabra’s Extreme Headset ($79) is here to the rescue to provide a great experience at a reasonable price.

On Tuesday, the FBI seized a number of servers from DigitalOne, a Swiss hosting company that leases blade servers from a Virginia datacenter. The FBI had a warrant for only one particular server, used by a fraudulent “scareware” distributor, but the FBI ended up taking a lot more servers than the one they were actually looking for, knocking several web sites offline in the process… and making off with nearly all of popular offline reading platform Instapaper‘s user data, some of its codebase and some password encryption keys in the process.

We again highlight a deal on MacBook Pros offered by the Apple Store, including a 2.4GHz model for just $899. Next is an alarm clock and iPhone or iPad doc duo from Innova for just $20. Finally, we offer a micro Sim card for unlocked GSM iPhones or iPads.

Along the way, we also check out a portfolio for iPads with a 6-foot USB cable, plus auto-save and backup software for the Mac. As always, details on these items and more can be found on the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Remember the hacker who exposed over 114,000 AT&T iPad customers’ personal data in last year’s widely publicized security breach? He just pled guilty.