Cult of Mac

Never one to shy away for “Me-Too”-isms, Amazon has just launched their own analogue to the popular Mac App Store.

We start off with a MacBook Pro bundle. The package includes a 13-inch machine with a Dual Core i5 processor running at 2.3GHz, plus 8GB of memory for $1,449. Next is a crystal skin case for your iPhone 3G. We wrap up the deal spotlight with a two-year iPhone warranty.

Along the way, we also check out a Mac Pro Xeon workstation, an iPod touch case, plus many accessories for your favorite Apple device. As always, details on these items and many others can be found at the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

As rumored, Google just announced their new service, Google Wallet… and unless Apple has some surprises up its sleeves when it comes to NFC, it looks likely that the search giant will have a year’s head start on Cupertino when it comes to the lucrative and burgeoning market of mobile payments.

It seems Apple’s legal team managed to take some time out of suing Samsung to file a lawsuit against a New York City teenager who made $130,000 selling white iPhone 4 conversion kits before the device was launched.

If you’ve ever tried to use your iPad while wearing a pair of Ray Bans, you know the drill: you can barely see the display. Counter-intutively, it’s not an issue of brightness: rather, polarized sun-glasses work by only letting in light that vibrates vertically, and the light coming from LCDs vibrates the wrong way.

Your next iPhone or iPad, though? It might change all that.

Don’t bank on BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion owning the enterprise. RIM devices are being hurled into the trash at financial institutions as more and more bankers turn to the iPhone.

Foxconn’s public relations issues have just collided. A week after an explosion rocked Foxconn’s iPad 2 production facility in Chengdu, China, an employee of that facility has committed suicide.

Apple employees at its Upper West Side store in New York City are being charged for racial discrimination after an incident during which they allegedly told two black men they were not welcome in the store and asked them to leave. Thankfully, the whole occurrence was recorded on a cell phone.

If you thought Apple was good at pushing its tech gadgets to consumers, that’s nothing compared to some government deals. What’s great about federal contracts, if $1M mistake is made, agencies will cover it up, a government watchdog reports.

One of the best attributes of Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone series is that beautiful AMOLED display, which could find its way into Apple’s third-generation iPad and finally deliver that Retina display iPad we’re all longing for. However, we’re skeptical Apple and Samsung will shake hands on this occasion.

Here, have a barf. Watch this guy assemble a random assemblage of PC parts, cram them into a tablet chassis, install Windows XP on the resulting mess and then have the sheer audacity to emblazon it with an Apple logo and call it the iPad 3… all to a soundtrack of nu-metal-for-fratties band Linkin Park, as apparently broadcast by AM radio to a receiver made out of a tin can.

Thanks to the recent hacking catastrophe that left Sony’s PlayStation Network offline for nearly a month, online gaming for PlayStation users seems to be a rare treat these days. To help you get the most out of PSN when it is available, a new iPhone application will tell you when you’re good to game.

Music lovers, pay attention: your festivals will be digitized. UK cell phone network Orange has just announced an mobile app (for all platforms, not just iOS) for this year’s Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, UK.

While we’re certain Apple isn’t struggling to fill seats at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, its iPhone public relations team are reportedly contacting British journalists and inviting them to the attend the party.

Apple has released an update to Logic Express and Pro so that both applications support the ability to open projects that users create on an iPad using GarageBand on that platform.

SAN FRANCISCO — We’ve just had a hands-on taste of what might be the future of car audio at an intimate press event in downtown San Francisco — and we think they’re on to something big.

Amid all the talk of malware scares for Mac users recently, here’s a useful guide to Mac security basics, from the NSA of all people.

Nisus Writer Pro, a venerable word processor for Mac OS X, recently got updated to version 2.0, with some very welcome additions to the features list.

If you’ve ever wanted to download torrents on your iOS device, then iTransmission is the way to go. While Apple (currently) wouldn’t let something like this into the App Store, you can download it for free from the InsanelyI Cydia repo (repo.insanelyi.com). iTransmission is currently in alpha, so there may be some bugs. It’s very easy to use, works very well, and works for both the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad. For you developers out there, iTransmission is open-source.

With an impressive collection of App Store releases, and a new hit seemingly every week, Gameloft is one of the biggest and most successful game developers for the iOS platform. But where does it get its inspiration for so many excellent releases? Well, from the consoles, of course.

When it came time to test the CDMA iPhone 4 on Verizon’s networks, Apple had learned a few things about security from the infamous Gizmodo early iPhone 4 leak. They weren’t about to make the same mistakes twice.

This guy brought his MacBook to Mediabistro’s Social Media Optimization conference in San Francisco (btw, good stuff) where it ended up serving as booster chair for his iPad.

As both a bibliophile and an 11-inch MacBook Air owner, there’s only one word to describe the new BookBook case by TwelveSouth: utterly gorgeous:

Apple may be preparing to nuke Mac Defender from orbit in the next Snow Leopard update, but not only is the malware still a very real threat… Mac Defender now mutated into an even bigger danger than it was before.

We start another week of deals with iPod and iPad bargains in the spotlight. First up is a number of iPod touch units, beginning at $149 for an 8GB model. Next is a lattice back protector for the original iPad. Finally is a 70 percent discount on select iPad 2 cases.

Along the way, we also check out deals on the ModBook, leather cases for the iPad 2, ways to take your iPad in the car, as well as 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.