I’ve recently had the opportunity to carry a second phone (a while with Android, awhile with Windows Phone) in addition to my trusty and increasingly busted 3GS (missing volume buttons, broken lock button). I say “opportunity” largely because I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t buy an iPhone 4 when I had the chance, and now it’s looking like the fall before I’ll get to upgrade to an iPhone 5 or whatever Apple chooses to call it. This makes now an ideal time to take a close look at what the competition is up to. The worst kind of fan is the unthinking, in my view, so I jumped at the chance to know whether my iOS admiration was warranted, and, if not, actually get to preview a handset I could contemplate switching to at some point (for obvious reasons, I would not run the same experiment with other tablets. The iPad really is the only game in town).

Join me, then, for the Apple maniac’s up-close tour of the distinguished competition, through peril, triumph, and confusion, as I take a long, hard look at life with a Nexus S 4G and an HTC HD7, representatives of the very mature Android (Nexus) and the practically beta Windows Phone 7.

JailbreakMe, undoubtedly the easiest method of jailbreaking an iOS device, is set to return imminently with version 3.0 — the all-purpose jailbreak for any device, including the iPad 2, running iOS 4.3.3 and below. Comex has updated the site for the second time in the past week, leading some to speculate the relaunch of the new service will be today.

Thanks to the continued growth of Apple’s iOS devices, the iTunes platform that includes the App Store and the iBookstore is set to grow at a rate of 39% over the next three years and rake in a whopping $13 billion in revenue during 2013.

Despite being accessible only to a select few for the time being, the official Google+ app for the iPhone will hit the App Store anytime soon — possibly before the service even goes public.

A Taiwan-based component maker in Apple’s supply chain is reportedly set to produce 15 million units of the fifth-generation iPhone, according to a new report — readying the device for a September launch. Though it may not boast that major redesign many had been hoping for.

Within a day of a black iPhone 4 prototype hitting eBay, a similar set of iPhones has just hit the popular shopping site. These white iPhone 4s appear to be  early prototypes, which are missing the silver ring around the camera, as well as any signs of  model numbers or capacities on the back, both of which are X’d out.

Magic Hour is a photo app for people who love the filter effects you get from apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic.

In addition to a fancy new processor and Intel’s super speedy Thunderbolt technology, Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air may also boast the latest high-speed 400MBps flash memory.

Our roundup of must-have iOS games this week includes 1-bit Ninja — a unique new platformer that boasts retro gameplay in a stylised 2D side-scrolling world, which you can drag into 3D at any time to reveal hidden paths — like no other platform game you’ve ever played.

Also on our list is Pocket Academy, the latest release from Kairosoft, the developers behind Game Dev Story; and the official Transformers game from Electronic Arts.

Later this month AT&T will finally do away with dedicated iPhone insurance plans and introduce the device to its standard mobile insurance plan at $4.99 a month.

As my colleague Mike Elgan points out, the iPhone has changed the world in profound ways.

Now an ex-colleague, Brian Chen of Wired.com, has just published one of the first books to take an in-depth look at how, exactly, the smartphone world is shaping up.

Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future — and Locked Us In is an excellent overview of how the iPhone is changing the computing landscape.

I follow Apple closely, yet I was surprised at how much I learned about the world of mobile from Chen’s well-reported book (Full disclosure: I provided a blurb).

Personally, I don’t quite understand what’s so special about an old Apple prototype, especially one that doesn’t work. But clearly someone does, because this iPhone 4 prototype is currently getting bids of over $1,700 on eBay.

If you, like me, have lusted after the Tenori-on electronic musical instrument for years since it was first announced in 2005, then here’s some good news: an official iOS port of the device is now on sale in the App Store.

The iTunes Festival 2011 is now well under way in London, boasting 31 nights of music from 62 artists including Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance, and many more. If you weren’t lucky enough to bag yourself some tickets, you can still enjoy every show live and on demand with the iTunes Festival London 2011 app for your iOS device — the first of this week’s must-have iOS applications!

We’ve also included the brand new Starbucks app, which boasts Mobile Pay, reward card management and eGifts; and the Photosynth app from Microsoft, which just got an awesome update!

Have you noticed how Apple and Google have been going round in circles recently? Both OS X Lion and Google’s new Facebook challenger, Google+, sport circular frames around their user photos.

If you are planning on using Target Disk Mode to boot your Mac equipped with Thunderbolt ports you’ll need Apple’s special Thunderbolt cable in order for it to work. This is required even when connecting two Macs or a Mac to an external Thunderbolt equipped disk drive.

Here’s a good resource to take a look at if you plan on upgrading to OS X Lion this month. Roaringapps.com is a crowd sourced application compatibility database for OS X Lion. The site depends on user input about the compatibility of existing applications running on Snow Leopard or whether or not apps will need Rosetta.

Apple has released the Gold Master build of the next version of of its Mac OS X operating system to developers, meaning that 10.7 Lion could see release to the public as early as next week, exclusively through the Mac App Store.

For users looking to upgrade, this is uncharted territory: the first OS X upgrade to be delivered digitally. To help you prepare for Lion and guarantee your machine is one hundred percent ready to upgrade the second Lion drops, we’ve put together this handy guide.

Here’s how to prepare your Mac for Lion, and do it right.

Apple has started to issue refund checks for MobileMe subscriptions. My check arrived from Apple today. Have you gotten yours? And I know what you are thinking — yes I’ve spent mine already. On Apple stuff no less.

If you haven’t asked for a refund it might not be too late.  Here’s the information about MobileMe refunds for those of you that might have missed the news last month.

For a few minutes this morning, a working version of Comex’s much anticipated Jailbreakme 3.0 hack was leaked to the web, allowing users who visited a special site on MobileSafari to jailbreak their iPad 2s running iOS 4.3.3.

The leak’s since been taken down, but it was confirmed to work by multiple users to be a working jailbreak, and Cydia is now working on multiple iPad 2s through the userland exploit.

The iPhone turned 4 this week. And in that short amount of time, Apple’s smartphone has made a huge impact on the world as we know it. In fact, the iPhone is probably the most influential consumer electronics product ever made.

Here are the 12 ways iPhone has changed the world in only four years.

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This tops any list of back-handed compliments: a woman leaves her iPhone 4 on the roof of her car. Drives away.

It’s not clear who received the greater slight in this case. A resident in Wilmette, IL recently reported the theft of an Apple iPod which had been left in the cupholder inside an unlocked vehicle. There were also two tickets to an upcoming Chicago Cubs game inside, and the glove compartment and trunk were reported searched.

The iPod was taken. The Cubs tickets were not taken. Looks like Cubs fans aren’t happy, the team is currently 10.5 games back in the NL Central. Are things really that bad?

[via TribLocal Wilmette]

We’ve got the fabulous MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Book Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, and now the Mac Faux.  The Mac for people who already wasted their money on something else, but don’t want to be left out. It might not look that good, but now you have another idea about how to carry your favorite snack around. I’m sure that notebooks sporting vegetables aren’t far behind.

It looks like artist Christo got to the iconic glass cube of Apple’s Fifth Avenue store. Too bad for all those tourists who came to take pictures of one of the Big Apple’s most snapped attractions.