U.S. record labels are dragging their feet in negotiations to bring music streaming service Spotify to American shores, a move reportedly aimed at give Apple a first crack at a similar subscription plan.

You know the drill. Every year, Apple gives students a special incentive to buy a new Mac in the form of a cheap iPod.

This year, though, the deal might be a lot spicier: students might get a couple bills off a new iPad instead of an entry-level iPod Touch. And Cupertino might just be so excited about this that Back to School will prominently be mentioned at next week’s WWDC.

RIM never did shake its button-down image in attempts to expand into the consumer market dominated by Apple. Realizing its failure, the handset maker is ready to surrender to Apple in the consumer ring, and focus on its business roots… an arena which iPhone is also increasingly dominating.

Remember yesterday’s sketchy report that Apple was looking to get Samsung to supply an AMOLED display for the iPad 3? So that’s not going to be happening, and it’s all because of the same problems that have plagued the tech from the start: the difficulty of ramping up large scale production on AMOLED displays.

That ugly patent troll who has recently been causing a disturbance for indie iOS developers has now turned its attentions to those building apps for Android, right after Apple slapped it on the wrist and sent it packing. Lodsys has photocopied another batch of its intimidating letters and sent them out to a number of Android developers… but will it earn any pocket money this time?

Prepare to get buckets of blood splattered all over your new white iPhone as you exit the Apple Store next week. A group that feels that Apple tries to weasel its way out of too many taxes will be protesting Apple’s retail locations around the country.

Good things come to those who wait. While Google and Amazon rushed to offer simple cloud storage services, Apple apparently was working on something bigger. Much bigger. Get ready for iCloud, a full-featured service streaming your iTunes collection to your iPhone, iPad – eventually even your car.

Speculation that Apple is to introduce ARM processors to the next revision of its MacBook Airs continues, as one source claims the company is internally testing the ultraportable notebooks with its A5 processor… but will we really see an A5 powered MacBook Air? I don’t think so.

Counter to the perception that Android is closing the gap with Apple, a new report shows the iPhone maker’s App Store is miles ahead when it comes to making money for developers.

To celebrate Memorial Day, Electronic Arts and Gameloft have reduced over 30 of their biggest iOS titles. For as little as $0.99, iOS gamers can enjoy one of the most impressive FPS titles in Battlefield Bad Company 2, exhilarating racing action in Need for Speed, and the the biggest soccer franchise available in FIFA 11. Here’s the full list of games on sale:

From the “Not Sure If This Is A Good Idea” Department, automaker Porsche has developed the Porsche G-Force iPhone app as a free download for driving enthusiasts and teenagers of all ages.

Silent Film Director is another app to add to the amusing-video-effects list, but this one’s worth investigating.

For those of you who use Google’s Chrome web browser on your Mac or PC, a new app called iChromy aims to offer an identical browsing experience on your iPad, with a polished user interface and some rather nice features.

While there’s no question that Mac OS X Lion will be one of the main talking points at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, we weren’t quite expecting it to launch during the event. However, one report believes Apple is currently prepping Lion for a WWDC release.

It looks like some Italian devs are playing a little game with Apple.  They get WPA finder apps approved, then when the Cupertino company realizes what they are, they yank them for violating store guidelines.

Right now, one that lets you guess the default password of common routers so that you can log on to a stranger’s network is available in iTunes for $0.99.

As we’re probably all aware by now, Apple’s Thunderbolt I/O debuted earlier this year with the new generation of MacBook Pros and threatened to make all other interfaces, like USB and FireWire, seem like stone-age relics — and at the same time, make obsolescent all current external HDDs. All, that is, except Seagate’s line of GoFlex drives.

If you’ve ever had your iPhone stolen, you can understand the urge to become an angel of crippling, throat-crushing, eye-gouging vengeance to the no-good perp who stole your precious.

Here’s a cautionary tale reminding you to resist that temptation: that guy you you’re beating down in a parking lot for swiping your iPhone might be as innocent of the crime as a babe on Christmas.

Business mag Fast Company had funnyman Conan O’Brien pose as eight of history’s greatest innovators for its latest issue on the 100 most creative people in business.

For the cover, Conan dressed as Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Steve Jobs, Madonna, Moses, Socrates and Teddy Roosevelt. Weirdly, Jobs doesn’t make Fast Company‘s 2011 list, but his software lieutenant Scott Forstall does.

Here’s a bigger version of the cover:

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.