The iPhone isn’t likely to get NFC-capabilities allowing it to function as a credit card until 2012, according to most reports, but Apple’s biggest competitor in the smartphone arena has no intention of waiting so long: Google is preparing to unveil their own mobile payment system on May 26th.

Apple’s first CEO wasn’t Steve Jobs, but rather Michael Scott, who ran the company from February in 1977 to March 1981. Installed by Apple’s first backer Mike Markkula because Jobs and Steve Wozniak couldn’t be trusted to run the company, Scott has a unique view of Jobs in his youth: a hot head who ignored people and talent in favor of an anal-retentive attention to aesthetic detail.

We’ve seen and loved Jan-Michael Cart’s incredible iOS 5 concept videos before, but his latest might be our favorite yet: it shows how Apple could bring OS X’s Dashboard feature to iOS 5.

The guys over at MacHeist are much revered among Mac users for their wonderful series of discounted app bundles. Now they’ve turned iPhone developers with their new game, The Heist… and if you beat the game, you’ll get a free game through Steam for Mac for your trouble.

It’s no iPad, that’s for sure, but Barnes & Noble has just taken a big new step towards making e-readers even more accessible to the populace at large: they’ve added a touchscreen to their latest Nook,

While the iPhone 4 may already be sleek and slender, pulling it out of your pocket or bag every time you need to use it can sometimes be slightly troublesome. Future iPhones could eradicate this irritation by allowing you to do everything from taking calls to playing games by making gestures on the palm of your hand.

Opera has finally released Opera Mini 6 for iOS for iOS, with a bunch of very welcome new features.

First Apple cut carriers out of the software delivery business. Now the tech giant wants to eliminate the last hold carriers have on customers: the sim card. But should the smartphone maker destroy its partners to build a slimmer iPhone?

The ingenuity shown by people devising iPhone add-ons (both software and hardware) never ceases to amaze me. This latest idea is one of the coolest I’ve seen for a while.

(Update: Looks like we were right to be skeptical. GigaOm has since corrected their post to say they mistakenly published an old press release.)

In what we hope is a return from his medical leave of absence, Apple has apparently just confirmed that Steve Jobs will be the official keynote speaker at this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference.

Apple’s suing Samsung for copying the intellectual property of their iPhone, iPad and iOS designs. In return, Samsung’s suing Apple for patent infringement.

In the Apple vs. Samsung case, though, Apple has just won a weird little concession from the judge: they get to see five of Samsung’s unreleased tablets and smartphones. Can you imagine what would happen if Samsung got the same concession in their suit against Apple?

It ain’t over until it’s over, Yogi Berra once said. The sports legend could have been talking about Apple’s attempt to lure the music industry onto the cloud. Just as an agreement to make your music accessible everywhere seemed at hand, publishers want more cash.

With iOS 4, Apple left the original iPhone and iPod Touch behind in the dust of iOS 3.1.3, and even the iPhone 3G could not avail itself of some of iOS 4’s most notable features, like multitasking. As long as you at least had an iPhone 3GS, though, you’d be fine.

Given how many problems the iPhone 3G hardware had running iOS 4.0, it should come as no surprise that Apple is hoping to consign that hardware to the dustbin when they debut iOS 5 at WWDC next month. What may be more surprising is that the iPhone 3GS will go into the dustbin too.

Dell just launched its newest 15-inch notebook named the XPS 15z, which it claims in its advertising material is “the thinnest 15-inch PC on the planet.” However, the fact that it’s still fatter than a 2.5-year-old MacBook Pro is a testament to Apple’s superior design and engineering… as well as Dell’s willingness to use flexible semantics when it comes to trumping Cupertino.

Since iOS 4, Apple has been securing your iPhone’s data with 256-bit encryption. That encryption has just been cracked, and just by running a simple program, anyone with access to your handset can access the full data stored even in encrypted iPhone backups.

If fancy one of those cool custodians that looks like it was made from an old cassette case, you’re in luck.

They’re now half off and will cost you just $10.

The news keeps on getting worse for Apple in the wake of the Chengdu Foxconn explosion. Besides the ghastly loss of three lives and the dozens of wounded Foxconn employees, the explosion could cost Apple half a million iPad 2s. Given existing supply problems, that’s a number of lost iPads Apple can ill afford to lose.

Humble  or inspire yourself with a digital copy of the real Da Vinci Code on your iPad.
Leonardo’s war machines from the 1,000-plus-page Codex Atlanticus are now available for your perusal.  

It’s enough to bring a smile to an angry bird: Apple’s iTunes can boast a half-million apps. That figure likely will get an official stamp of approval when CEO Steve Jobs speaks June 9 before developers at the annual WWDC in San Francisco.

The tragic explosion at a iPad 2 polishing plant in Chengdu has already killed three and wounded dozens, and the closing of that facility could affect iPad 2 supply by up to 30%.

In the short term, iPad 2 supply is likely to get even worse, as Foxconn has just closed all of its polishing plants across China for investigation.

These images purportedly depict the new rear cover for Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone, but how genuine are they?

While many recent reports have predicted the next iPhone will feature the same design as the iPhone 4, Stephane Richard, CEO for France Telecom, revealed in a recent interview that Apple is currently taking steps to ensure the fifth-generation device is smaller and thinner than its predecessor.

An Apple store at New York’s Grand Central Terminal is back on.

Chinese developer Digiarty is giving away a two-title combo pack, which includes a video converter and a DVD ripper, for free till May 25.