Got an idea for a killer app? Consider huddling up for a weekend hackathon with designers and developers at iOSDev Camp 2011.

When American Airlines announced that they were planning on phasing out the paper in-flight charts in the cockpit in favor of the iPad, some of us smelled a PR maneuver. How could a couple of breakable $500 tablets in each plane be cheaper or easier than just printing out some maps?

As it turns out, though, paper’s heavy… and merely by switching to the iPad in every plane, American Airlines could save up to $1.2 million every year in fuel costs alone.

Apple might not have more money than God (yet), but come the end of this quarter, they are likely to have so much cash flowing from their coffers that, if they had a mind to, they could buy the entire mobile phone industry.

Are you looking for an attractive wrapper for your iPhone or iPad? If so, you’ve come to the right edition of the daily deals. However, first up, let’s spotlight new deals on the iPod touch, starting with an 8GB previous generation unit for just $149. Next is a chrome flip case for your iPhone 4. Finally, we offer a TPU Micro Circle TPU case for the AT&T iPhone 4.

Along the way, we also check out cases for the iPad 2, as well as audio editing software for the Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the break.

The most impressive ebooks on the iPad aren’t ebooks at all, but dedicated iOS apps. With the power of HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and ePUB3, though, there’s no reason that has to be the case at all: you can put together a truly interactive, animated ebook right within iBooks.

Check out this awesome look at the iBook put together by Walrus Books for the upcoming Lovecraftian tome Kadath: The Guide To The Unknown City. Not only does it feature interactive maps, embedded fonts, integrated pop-ups and more, but it even has its own in-book meta game and version of in-app purchases.

This is super cool. I wish we saw more iBooks like this, but unfortunately, it seems like most publishers design their ebooks for the lowest common denominator platform — the Kindle.

Here’s the bad news: Apple only owns 10% of all video sales, handily beaten by the likes of YouTube, Amazon and Netflix. The good news? If someone’s watching online video, chances are they’re doing it on an iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.

The news that the BBC would be creating a new iPhone app to beam stories live spread faster than an Internet hoax.

One small problem: that’s not exactly what the venerable news organization plans to do.

If you weren’t convinced that the most dramatic upgrade you can do to a Mac is install a solid state drive in its belly, check this video out.

15 seconds. Just 15 seconds. That’s how long it takes a 3.4GHz Sandy Bridge iMac armed with a Sandy Bridge processor and an SSD drive to launch all of its apps simultaneously.

In iOS 5, Apple has fixed a long standing issue that prevented home screen web apps from running as fast as they would within Mobile Safari.

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Calendar apps are usually pretty boring. You log an appointment in it and then you never think about the app again. Fantastical is here to bring a little bit of flavor and awesomeness to your drab calendar app. Fantastical allows you to create events instantly via natural language input. One of the great things is that the app works perfectly with iCal, Entourage, and Outlook so you don’t have to change over to a new calendar system.

Lucky for you, the team behind Fantastical, Flexibits, wanted us to share the love with all our readers, so today we’re giving away 3 promo codes for this awesome new calendar app. Soon enough you’ll be using natural language to create events in no time. Of course you have to enter to win. Here’s how to enter today’s contest.

Responding to RIM’s layoff announcement yesterday, Wall Street said the BlackBerry maker had met its worst nightmare in Apple… a one-trick pony about to be dragged to the glue factory by iOS 5 and iMessage.

Oh, man, finally. Years after showing Europe how a streaming music service ought to be done, and just a couple of weeks after Apple made it clear that their own iTunes-In-The-Cloud service wouldn’t do streaming at all, Spotify has officially confirmed that it will be coming to the United States within a matter of weeks.

Remember when Mark Zuckerberg scoffed that there was no reason to release a native Facebook iPad app because the “iPad’s not mobile!”

Guess he’s changed his mind: Facebook’s prepping an official iPad app, and it’s already in final testing.

The iPad 2 jailbreak we’ve all long been waiting for could arrive as early as this evening.

Don’t mess with Apple’s designs. That’s the message as the iPad and iPhone maker steps up its attacks on rival Samsung. As the two prepare to face off in court today, Apple has now amplified its verbiage, claiming that Samsung products “blatantly imitate” the iPhone and iPad’s sleek appearance. Earlier, the tech giant referred to Samsung as merely the “copyist.”

Apple may be considering licensing Rosetta to developers whose software might otherwise be left behind in the transition to Lion.

If the rumors are true then iWeb will go away along with MobileMe in 2012, but luckily for you there is plenty of time to look for alternative applications. Giles Turnbull offered up a few ideas on What To Do With Your iWeb Site that you should take a look at if you haven’t. I’d like to add to his advice by recommending four popular desktop web design applications that run on Mac OS X.

Ball Frenzy isn’t a game I expected to like – but I do.

If you’ve ever used RSS feeds to keep track of new stuff the web (and people used to, before Twitter and Facebook came along), the chances are good that you’ll have heard of an application called NetNewsWire.

I always had a heck of a time figuring out what to get my dad for Father’s Day; he never wore ties, didn’t have patience for gadgets and wasn’t a big sports fan. I might have sent him one of these, though (and if he had ever read his email, he might have received it).

Life doesn’t get any better than lining up tracks at a party, armed with an iPad and DJ tools like Griffin’s iRig and StompBox. Oh wait — it does!

FaceKandi is a new app that uses Apple’s FaceTime chat to hook you up with real live people to “chat, flirt, make friends or simply have a bit of fun.”

The live, one-on-one FaceTime chat works on the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 and the fourth-gen iPod Touch. The devs say the app does not store your personal data, or record your Facetime ID.

Anyone playing around with an iPhone 4 for any length of time will have realized that its compactness, decent sensor-processor combo and the huge selection of editing apps available make the darn thing is a superb platform for making both films and still photographs — if you can work around some of the gadget’s limitations. In this case, Habbycam, a small Southern Camifornia-based company that supplies all manner of rigs to the film industry, came up with the Habbycam iGrip ($140) as a better way to hold and position the iPhone for extended shooting. We think it needs work.

There’s no rest for the suits: just days after iCloud Communications announced it filed over the use of the iCloud name, publisher J.T. Colby and Co. has filed a suit against Apple over the use of the term “iBook.”

The publisher claims the trademark was bought from Byron Preiss Visual Publications in 2006 as part of a bankruptcy sale. Priess registered his first ISBN for an “iBook” back in 2000 and published over 1,000 titles under the “iBooks” brand.

As neat as Apple’s FaceTime service is, for many people, it tends to be just a novelty. With two FaceTime capable devices though, it can become a lot more useful. In this video, you’ll see how you can expand the possibilities of FaceTime beyond video conferencing.