We start out with a MacBook, an iPod and an iPad deal. First up, the Apple Store offers several MacBook Air laptops, beginning at $849 for a 1.4GHz model with 64GB SSD and 2GB of RAM. Next, there is a deal on a 64GB iPod touch for $240. (This is the previous fifth-generation.) We wrap-up the spotlight with an iPad 2 case that also serves as a kickstand.

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

I just don’t get this Kickstarter project. Called the iKeyboard, the idea is to make the iPad easier to touch type on without adding bulk to either your iPad or your gadget bag.

But as a guy who does a lot of touch typing throughout the day, I’ve got to say, I’m a bit mystified by how exactly trying to type through a bunch of rectangular holes is going to make iPad writing easier for me.

Google Music Beta launched yesterday, beating iTunes into the cloud by at least a couple months, but with one big drawback: it wasn’t supposed to work on iOS devices, but just one day later and Google Music is already up and running on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Here’s how to use Google Music on your iDevice.

It sounds like the poster boy (or product) for “have your cake and eat it too”: Third Rail Mobility‘s new backpack-battery system is a slim case (callled the Slim Case, just to be confusing) that allows their removable 1250 mAh Smart Battery to snap on. Smart? Heck, the battery sounds like a genius: Besides being able to power other electronic devices off its micro USB port, “stacked Smart Batteries will automatically and seamlessly transfer power to create as many fully-charged batteries as possible,” says the press release.

The whole kit runs $90, or the case and battery can be bought individually for $40 and $60, respectively. And right now, it’s only available for the iPhone 4 (Android flavors coming soon).

If you’re read this expecting to see Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs exchange body blows in court, read the headline again: that homophone can be confusing, the ‘e’ matters and the company we’re talking about here is Linex, a Florida company that licenses wireless technology.

Even so, Linex and Apple are revving up to go to court, and if Linex has its way, the import of all MacBooks will be banned, along with Apple’s Airport Extreme and Time Capsule products.

Are Apple sales cooling off? That’s the belief of one Wall Street analyst who tells investors Wednesday the Cupertino, Calif. firm may have seen a 7 percent drop in April sales, compared to a historical increase of nearly 5 percent increase for the third quarter. But when we’re talking about Apple, a “slowdown” needs to be put in some context.

When it comes to the iPad, you’re either a cheapskate or a sheik. That’s the message coming out of new data published by Context, which says that most people either buy the cheapest iPad or the most expensive one.

This is the latest smash-and-grab theft to hit an Apple store in the US. The security cam shows head-to-toe black clad thieves who broke into the store in Crocker Park, Ohio at 4:30 am.

They move like pros — unlike earlier smash and grabs, where you can see the idea was just to break in and load up with Apple goodness — each one runs to a specific area for loot.

In about 30 seconds, they have loaded up large black duffel bags with stolen goods and are out of the store. Police say they snatched 24 laptops and an iPod.

Breaking those trademark Apple retail glass storefronts has become such an epidemic that the FBI is investigating whether there are professional gangs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb7X8ch04Vs&feature=player_embedded#at=17

Here’s a kind of love song, disguised as a hate rant, by an alt chick in a low-slung tank top who smokes home rolled somethings and “definitely touches herself while she thinks of Mac products.”

She’s young and hip, yet professes to hate hipsters, and pens the kind of poison lyrics only the truly cool possessed with enough self-detachment will find funny. It’s all very meta.

“I remember a time when I could walk out the door and not hate the sight of every other person under 29.”

She’s got such a sweet voice when she tells you to take that effing iPad and shove it-up-your-effing-you-know-where-you bleep-bleep-bleep-bleeper and buy a real book. (I’m sparing the expletives here, but surely you can fill in the blanks).

Will there ever be a similar song about hipsters with Nooks or Kindles or Galaxy Tabs?

Via Buzz Feed

iOS applications that alert drivers to DUI checkpoints and speed traps could soon be pulled from the App Store following a review by Apple that will determine whether or not these applications are illegal.

Guy Tribble, Apple’s Vice President of Software Technology, told senators during a U.S. Senate subcommittee yesterday that the company is currently looking into the legality of these applications, and will pull them if they are breaking the law.

While a number of publishers ink special deals with Apple to bring their content to the App Store, Apple’s new in-app purchasing rules are forcing publishing middle men out of business. That’s the message from the creators of iFlow Reader, which just shut down.

“We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us,” Philip Huber of BeamItDown Software told users. The developer got squeezed between Apple’s demand for a 30 percent cut and other expenses. “Our gross margin on ebooks after paying the wholesaler is less than 30 percent, which means that we would have to take a loss on all ebooks sold,” Huber explained.

Now that several reports show the iPad eating into sales of traditional low-cost PCs, the blame game has begun – starting with Acer. You may recall Apple sales in the U.S. recently surpassed Acer, which fell 42 percent. The computer maker’s former CEO now blames the company’s slowness in responding to the iPad threat.

“I already saw if we want to become a major player in this new world, we needed to do certain investments, mainly on software and on smartphones and tablets, on touch,” ex-CEO Gianfranco Lanci told a blog earlier this week. Lanci resigned in late March amid reports he was blamed for the iPad cannibalizing Acer’s market.

iAd slots in iOS applications designed for children will no longer be filled with adverts, according to an email one developer has received from Apple.

Mike Zornek, the developer of the Dex a Pokemon browser application for iPhone and iPod touch, noticed that his iAd fill rates had dropped and emailed Apple’s iAd Support Team for an explanation:

OCZ has just announced its Agility 3 and Solid 3 series of 2.5-inch solid-state drives aimed at users dying to get their hands on a super-speedy SSD, but with a tight budget to contend with.

While the iPad has seemingly countless uses, one fairly uncommon one is the ability to use it as an external display for your Mac. iDisplay, a simple little app from the App Store, lets you achieve this. After all, if you already have the iPad, why not use it to your advantage? This video will show you how to set up iDisplay and tweak it to your liking.

Last fall we reported on the sale of Apple 1 system #82, which sold at a Christie’s auction for over $213,000. A rare piece of computing history, many wondered what the buyer, Italian businessman Marco Boglione, planned to do with his prize purchase.

Turns out like many collectors of old tech, Boglione wanted to fire that puppy up and relive the past! The system was brought to Politecnico di Torino University in Turin, Italy. After a careful power-up sequence designed to gracefully coax 35-year-old transistors back to life, the Apple 1 ran a simple BASIC program displaying the words “Hello Polito” on an old NTSC monitor – to honor the university and (presumably) the famous “Hello, World” program many students of programming are familiar with.

In a fitting meeting of old and new, a MacBook Pro was used to send control instructions to the Apple 1.

Those who are familiar with my long smoldering side-joint, Ectomo, know I might have a little bit of thing for the Eldritch, the R’lyehian, the Nyarlathotepesque. Cthulhu, in other words.

So I’m sure you’ll excuse the steaming pool of ejaculated central nervous system at my feet as I write this, because I got a little bit excited when I heard tell that indie dev Red Wasp Design is bringing Call of Cuthulhu: The Wasted Land to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

See that? It’s a just-awarded patent for an iPad boasting a landscape-oriented dock connector port in addition to the regular port-oriented one.

I’m sure there’s at least a few of you guys out there who are looking at that line-drawing and clawing strips of flesh out of your face in frustration: “ARGH… WHY DIDN’T APPLE RELEASE THAT?” Sorry, guys. The Department of Redundancy Department called, and they wanted their port back.

As promised, Apple sent V.P. Guy Tribble to Washington to address Senator Al Franken and other stuffy politicians about the so-called LocationGate scandal.

Cupertino’s message? Same as it ever was: we don’t track user locations. Period.

“We do not share customer information with third parties without our customers’ explicit consent. Apple does not track users’ locations. Apple has never done so and has no plans to do so,” said Tribble.

Curiously, while Apple may not track users’ locations, the United States Department of Justice would like mobile providers to start, allowing the Department of Justice to attain records that would “enable law enforcement to identify a suspect’s smartphone based on the IP addresses collected by Web sites that the suspect visited.”

What’s good for the goose isn’t necessarily what’s good for the gander. Apparently, it’s only okay for the government to keep track of what you do with your smartphone, not Apple.

Supposedly, what you see on the left here is the new iPod Nano, complete with 1.3 megapixel camera and with the clip removed. Consider us skeptical that Apple would ditch the Nano’s sports cred for anything as utterly superfluous as camming yet another camera into people’s pockets.

Just like their first kit for the original iPad, ModulR have released a case set of modular accessories for the iPad 2. At the heart of the system is a $40 iPad 2 case (with included hand strap) that features attachment points to which a whole slew of industrial-looking modular accessories can be attached, like a shoulder strap ($20) or a magnetic fridge mount ($15).

ModulR didn’t just resize the old set and slap it onto the iPad 2 — they say they’ve reworked it from the ground up, incorporating user feedback from the original set, resulting in a slimmer case and the ability to customize cases with a corporate logo. Which means it’s probably only a matter of time before a BMW ad features hard-hat wearing workers on the factory floor walking around with BMW-emblazoned iPads, right.

Apple has infamously railed on Google for being fragmented on multiple occasions, lambasting the Android-maker for allowing carriers and handset manufacturers to dictate the terms of updating the Android software.

Cupertino was right to criticize: the vast majority of Android smartphone users couldn’t even be reasonably sure before now that they’d even be able to update their operating system in the future. But Google’s made a big step today towards addressing Android fragmentation: they’ve announced a partnership with carriers and handset manufacturers that guarantees that new smartphones will receive Android platform updates for a minimum of eighteen months.

Following the announcement of their new cloud-based music service, Google today unveiled the latest version of their Android mobile operating system.

Code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, the next update is mostly dedicated to converging Android’s diverging smartphone and tablet code branches into a single united trunk.

If that sounds familiar, it should: it’s exactly what Apple had to do when it forked the iOS code for the original iPad’s release. At the time, the iPhone and iPod Touch were on version 3.1.3, while the iPad shipped with version 3.2.

We start the day with three hardware deals. First up is a number of new iMac desktops, beginning with a 2.5GHz Quad Core and 21.5-inch screen for $1,105. Next is several MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $899 for a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. Finally, another Apple LED Cinema Display for $849.

Along the way, we also check out a number of cases for the iPad 2, iPad and iPod nano, 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.

An analyst believes that as soon as this year, Apple will rip the Intel right out of the MacBook Air and transfuse an ARM-based chip in its place, maybe even some successor to the iPad 2’s A5 SoC. But that’s just stupid. Isn’t it?