AirMusic – ($0.99) iPhone – Utilities

AirMusic is a superb application for streaming your music over Wi-Fi to your PS3, Xbox 360, or PC, and allows you to wirelessly listen to your tunes through your TV without using an AppleTV. Its incredibly easy setup means your music is there the moment you want it – just ensure all of your devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, start AirMusic, then navigate to your music library on your console or PC and your tunes will be there – it couldn’t be easier.

Although I use an AppleTV in our living room, I downloaded this application for use with a PS3 in another room and so far I can’t fault it. The only downside to AirMusic is that it won’t play older iTunes purchases that are protected by DRM, but I’m yet to find a way of playing DRM-protected tunes on my PS3 without putting them onto a CD first. AirMusic setup takes literally a few minutes, streaming is effortless, and the quality is great. If you’re looking for a way to share your iPod library with your Xbox, PS3, or PC, I recommend you give AirMusic a go!

[xrr rating = 80%]

YoruFukurou (“Night Owl”) is a high quality, totally free Twitter client that will appeal to a wide cross-section of people.

Is this the Dock Connector for the iPhone 5 with its viscera hanging loose? Taiwanese site Apple.pro certainly thinks so, and as the guys who first posted pictures of the touchscreen to the new iPod Nano, they’ve got a decent history of getting their hands on parts of unannounced Apple products. So maybe!

The new Dock Connector is slightly narrower than the part found in the current iPhone, and is part number 821-1300-02, compared to 821-1281-A for the Verizon iPhone. It certainly looks legit, even if it doesn’t tell us much except that the next iPhone will be a smidge thinner.

As they are sometimes wont to do, Apple met with analysts last week to discuss — if not their plans — than at least the current state of corporate thinking and strategizing, giving an indirect glimpse into the future as Apple sees it.

One of those analysts, Toni Sacconaghi of Bernestein Research, has now issued a note about her meeting with COO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and VP Eddy Cue… and according to Toni, Apple’s strongly hinting at a cheaper iPhone nano coming soon.

We start another week and the last day of February with deals for your iPhone and Mac. First up is a new crop of reduced prices on Apps from the iPhone App Store, including “Cartoon Wars 2.” Next is the iPhone Puzzle game “LetsTans Deluxe – at free, it is a $3 price cut, Finally, another chance to get the game “World of Goo.” Fast becoming a classic on gaming platforms such as the Wii, now there is a version for your Mac.

Along the way, we’ll take a look at various iPhone docks, bumpers and cases for your iPad. As usual, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Last night, Apple held secret meetings with Apple Store retail staff around the world, most likely to brief employees on what to expect when the iPad 2 debuts on Wednesday. But what actually happens at those meetings? Silenced by NDAs, the employees can’t say… but that didn’t stop one of our readers from peeking through the keyhole.

His account of what he saw of the secret meeting at London’s Convent Garden Apple Store, after the jump.

No one doubts that Apple will announce the iPad 2 on Wednesday. The only question is whether or not they’ll just announce it and start taking preorders, or if iPad 2s will immediately be available for sale, as with last week’s MacBook Pro refresh.

For people looking to buy themselves an iPad 2, good news: evidence is mounting that Apple will start selling iPad 2s this week, as Apple has halted production and ceased shipments of all first-generation iPads.

Transferring the contents of one Mac to another is wonderfully elegant, like a lashing spermatoza slipping its way into a warm, virgin egg. All you do is connect your two Macs together, either through a FireWire or Ethernet cable, or by telling them to talk to each other over WiFi. Then you load up Migration Assistant. A couple of hours later, your new Mac will be imprinted with the last generation’s DNA. It’s as beautifully simple as the circle of life.

Unfortunately, for most PC users, switching to their first Mac isn’t anywhere near as elegant, and is largely a manual affair of backing up files higgledy-piggledy to an external drive, then manually copying them over.

That mess of a process will change with Lion, though: PC users will now be able to migrate their PC data to their Mac through Migration Assistant, just like Mac users, by simply booting up the MigrationAssistantSetup.exe program. Soon enough, the only real hurdle about switching from a PC to Mac will be the psychological one.

“Is this Apple’s next iPad?” Boy Genius Report asks, then supply their own answer in an update mere hours: no, it jolly well isn’t. At least not technically. But when March 2nd rolls around, it’ll probably end up being something pretty close.

This morning, Boy Genius Report was sent the image of the iPad 2 you see above, featuring a thinner design, flattened back, a visible rear speaker and a rear-mounted web cam. Unfortunately, they were punk’d: it was just a high-quality render of the iPad 2 by the Apple fan.

That said, we’d be willing to put money down that on Wednesday, you’re going to see an iPad 2 very like the above render. The case-manufacturers all agree upon the broad outlines of the iPad 2’s external redesigns. So we probably will see an iPad 2 that looks identical to this come Wednesday, with the only real question mark being that rear-mounted webcam. Everyone agrees the iPad 2 will come with FaceTime, but that only depends upon a forward-looking webcam.

In a day and age when every pair of headphones looks just as utilitarian as every other, I was surprised when I ran past the Urbanears booth at CES 2011 and was stopped by what I saw: understated; beautifully crafted; no-design-detail-missed; headphones. Surely they didn’t have the audacity to sound good too…

It’s a beautiful morning here in San Francisco to wake up and find your website has been effectively disappeared off the web by Google.

Cult of Mac has been downgraded by the changes Google has made to its algorithm to rerank content farms like Demand Media.

We’ve become a civilian casualty in the war against content farms.

You can read more about here in The Guardian, which highlighted us in a story about legit sites hit by the changes.

We’re not alone. Also affected is the British Medical Journal, PR Newswire, and one of the earliest online communities, The Well. According to an analysis by Sistrix, an independent search-engine analyst firm, hundreds of other legitimate, hardworking sites have also been hit.

Why us? We have no idea. The changes Google has made to its system are secret. What makes it worse is that Google’s tinkering seems to have actually improved Demand Media’s page rank, while killing ours.

We’re a blog, so we aggregate news stories like everyone else. But our posts are 100% original and we do a ton of original reporting, as The Guardian noted this morning.

Perhaps it was because we’re constantly ripped off by shitty clone blogs?

Or maybe because we ranked so highly for popular keywords like “Apple” and “iPhone.” In fact, we used to get a lot of love from Google, placing highly on Google News and Google’s general search pages. A lot of our traffic came from Google, which is why the changes are so serious. I’m already seeing a big drop-off in traffic. Over the weekend and today, the traffic is half what it normally would be.

I’m pissed because we’ve worked our asses off over the last two years to make this a successful site. Cult of Mac is an independently owned small business. We’re a startup. We have a small but talented team, and I’m the only full timer. We’re busting our chops to produce high-quality, original content on a shoestring budget.

We were just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. After two years of uncertainty, the site finally looks like it will be able to stand on its two feet.

But this is a major setback. Anyone got Larry’s cell number?

As expectation builds that Apple will soon announce a new version of its original iPad, one financial house projects the overall tablet market will become a $35 billion business by 2012, with more than a third of the devices reducing demand for netbook and notebook PCs.

“We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments,” JPMorgan Securities analyst Mark Moskowitz told Reuters Monday. More than 35 percent of the tablets will cannibalize the market for low-cost netbooks and notebook computers.

The old joke about technology is that if you want to setup that new gizmo, go get yourself a 10-year-old. We saw electronics retailer Best Buy follow that bit of wisdom with its consumer-oriented Geek Squad, an army of white-shirt and clip-on bow tie experts that could install that wireless router or a flat-screen television for a price. Apple is doing something similar by exporting its retail Genius techs for small business. The Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly will unveil Wednesday Joint Venture, a $500 per year service with the motto: “Get Setup. Get Trained. Keep Running.”

Sunday retail employees reportedly received word of the new service, which could be launched along with Apple’s much-rumored next-generation Apple iPad 2 during a San Francisco, Calif. media event. The new service would be offered to businesses purchasing a Mac, covering five systems with more unit support costing an additional $99 per year.

This is awesome: an iPhone 5 front panel that its leakers swear confirms that the next generation of Apple’s handset will have a larger, 4-inch display. Of course, who could tell without any point of reference?

This is either the most inept leak ever, or one of the best gags of the week. They should do a whole series of these leaks: the large iPhone 5 display next to, say, an equally “large” radioactive ant, or the world’s longest index finger.

To be fair, it does seem to confirm the iPhone 5 might have a thinner bezel at the sides…. but with the iPhone 5 still months away, this might just be an idea Apple’s toying with.

Despite Apple’s struggle with the white iPhone 4, a new iPad digitizer discovered by the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop suggests the company’s second-generation tablet may also be available in white. The part comes from Shenzhen City in China, where many of Apple’s products are assembled.

Closer inspection of the white digitizer above shows a small circular cutout along the top bezel, for what we expect to be the iPad 2’s front-facing camera, and it’s a perfect match for 9to5 Mac’s recently discovered iPad 2 screen protectors from Asia.

Just like all of Apple’s unreleased products, details and specifications regarding the second-generation iPad are under lock and key at Apple HQ until the device is announced on March 2nd, however, reports have suggested the upcoming device will be thinner, lighter, and faster.

I’ve had my 13-inch MacBook Air since they were first released and although I encountered video problems initially after the plethora of updates that Apple has released the video problems haven’t returned.

The updates included an EFI firmware update, a specific software update for the MacBook Air 2010 model, and the Mac OS X 10.6.5 software update. I even offered not one, but two suggested solutions to try.

These updates and suggested fixes worked for some, but unfortunately they didn’t work for everyone. People are still complaining on Apple Discussion Forums about problems they are encountering when connecting their MacBook Airs to external displays.

Steve Jobs is on medical leave and now one of his key lieutenants reportedly wants to return to his native U.K.

Apple’s head designer Jonathan Ive wants to return England to live, reports the Sunday Times. Ive, of course, is one of the key geniuses behind Apple’s string of blockbuster hits and is perhaps the world’s most influential industrial designer.

British-born Ive has reportedly proposed a plan to “commute” to Cupertino, Calif., from his $4 million manor house in Somerset, but Apple’s board is none too thrilled with the idea. Ive is said to be at “loggerheads” with the board, reports the Sunday Times.

A friend of the family told the paper: “Unfortunately he is just too valuable to Apple and they told him in no uncertain terms that if he headed back to England he would not be able to sustain his position with them.”

According to The Times, Ive has just reaped about $30 million from a ‘golden handcuffs’ deal signed in 2008, which has now expired. He and his wife Heather want to educate their twins in their native country.

Apple refused to comment on Ive’s employment status and said it was “speculation” that he wanted to return to the U.K.

The Sunday Times: I created the iPad and iClaim my £18m (Story behind pay wall).

Via Daily Mail.

Not many DJ applications for iOS devices quite deliver the experience you get from using this week’s first must-have app – Tap DJ. Its bucket-load of features, together with its brilliantly designed and incredibly intuitive user interface, make it the ultimate pocket DJ application.

Another of our favorites is Wunderlist – a beautifully elegant task manager that’s been around for a short while on the iPhone, and now it’s available in all its HD glory on the iPad

Writing on your iOS device can sometimes be a painful experience, especially if you don’t have a good text editor. Fortunately, our third must-have application is just that. Text Editor is a wonderfully effortless, yet incredibly useful text editor that will go a long way to ensuring that writing on your iOS device isn’t so bad.

Find out more about the applications above and our forth must-have – Oscar Backstage Pass – after the break!

Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, was moved to tears by a play about the working conditions of Apple’s factories in China.

Woz went to see “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs” by Mike Daisey on Tuesday night at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. The one -man show, which describes the working conditions in the massive factories that make gadgets for Apple, Hewlett-Packard and others, made Wozniak cry.

The Apple cofounder told the New York Times’ Bay Citizen website:

“The shocking things that Mike said which brought me to tears were so because they came as a first-person story,” Wozniak said. “Mike was living the pain of what he was describing as he told it.”

The monologue describes Daisey’s trip to Shenzhen last year, where he met workers at Foxconn’s plant as young as 12 and 13, and heard tales of the long, repetitive work. As many as 17 workers have committed suicide at the Foxconn plant.

Wozniak also said: “I will never be the same after seeing that show.”

This week’s roundup of must-have iOS games features what I think could be the next iPhone craze; Tiny Wings is a simple one-button arcade game based on a dream of flying, and another huge App Store success that will be sure to hang around for a while at the top of the paid charts, just like Angry Birds or Doodle Jump.

Volcano Escape is another of our favorites – a terrific platformer that provides level after level of action-packed entertainment, which, together with its crazy characters and explosive weaponry, makes it one of the greatest games of its genre.

Zombies are quite the stars within the App Store – some of the most popular iOS games feature the living dead. Our third must-have game this week, and another to add to the list of zombie successes, is Zombie Runaway – a brilliant run-as-far-as-you-can game that’s a little different to the rest.

Find out more about the games above after the break!

If you’re a packrat like me, and you need a really big bag for your MacBook plus everything else, you should seriously consider the Alix Laptop Tote Bag from J’Tote (pronounced zhe-tote).

I have been toting the Alix around for a month now. I have to say that this bag is my new favorite. It can take a beating and still looks great. If passion is your fashion, this bag is your match.

Text Writer – ($0.99) Universal – Productivity

Writing on your iOS device can sometimes be a painful experience, especially if you don’t have a good text editor. Fortunately, Text Editor is just that – a wonderfully effortless, yet incredibly useful text editor that will go a long way to ensuring that writing on your iOS device isn’t so bad. My favorite feature is a very simple one, yet you’ll be surprised how much you use it: there’s an additional line of keys across the top of your keyboard that features the copy, paste, select, home, and end functions, as well as all four arrow keys for when you can’t quite drag your cursor where you want it. It makes performing different tasks that little bit easier, and you’ll soon miss it within other applications.

While you’re writing your document Text Writer will automatically save it, so you don’t need to worry about losing your work if you take a call, jump out of the app to reply to a text, or if your battery dies half way through your document. And once you’ve finished, you can send the finished article via email. This app is universal, so one download will work on all of your iOS devices, and it’s great value for money at just a dollar. I love this application for its pure simplicity and ease of use, and for anyone looking for a basic text editor without all the fancy functions, you won’t go wrong with Text Writer.

[xrr rating = 80%]

Runaway Zombie – ($0.99) Universal – Games

Zombies are quite the stars within the App Store – some of the most popular iOS games feature the living dead. The latest must-have game to add to that list is Zombie Runaway, a brilliant run-as-far-as-you-can game that’s a little different to the rest. Instead of fighting off the undead to save yourself, in this game you are one of them, and your aim is to escape the humans. As opposed to traditional 2D running games, this one’s in 3D, and uses a simple 3-button control system to dodge and jump objects that get in your way on your runaway chase.

This game’s a must-have thanks to its multiple game modes that provide you with countless hours of exciting gameplay, and two completely different ways to play, unlike most other running games. When you’re confident the humans will never catch you, try out your skills in ‘Blitz mode’ in which you run through a dark graveyard crushing as many tombstones as you can within a certain time. Once you start playing, the excitement never dies and ensures Zombie Runaway isn’t just another zombie flop.

[xrr rating = 85%]

The Verizon iPhone 4 has the same antennagate issue as the GSM version, Consumer Reports says. And even though the iPhone 4 is one of the publication’s most highly-rated smartphones, it can’t recommend it.

The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, Consumer Reports engineers have found in lab tests.

That’s all weel and good, but in real life, Verizon’s customers aren’t complaining about dropped calls or signal degradation. On Verizon’s network, the antennagate issue is largely theoretical. Even though it’s possible to show signal degradation in the lab — as Consumer Reports claims it did — you can put as many fingers as you want across the gap and it still won’t drop a call.

Consumer Reports: Mind the gap, our tests show.

According to 9to5Mac MobileMe sales haven’t stopped instead they surmise that Apple is simply moving MobileMe subscriptions to online ordering only.

However, as they pointed out you can only join MobileMe under a 60-day trail. Paying for it isn’t currently possible and you cannot currently order the boxed version.

I think that starting March 2nd we will see MobileMe subscriptions that will be for sale in the Mac App Store.

What do you think?

[via 9to5Mac]