The iPad may live up to Apple’s own “magical” pr. If you define the tablet as a PC, than the Cupertino, Calif. company grew 241 percent year-or-year, making it third in global sales, ahead of Dell and just two places behind HP. Wednesday, one analyst firm released numbers of “strong PC industry growth” amounting to 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Canalys views the iPad (or ‘pad,’ as the company refers to the tablet) as the second-coming of netbooks. Remember netbooks? They help breath life into otherwise struggling PC sales. “Pads gave the market momentum in 2010, just as netbooks did the year before,” one senior analyst wrote.

Heading to San Francisco to MacWorld? Here are some things to do during your precious free time – between strippers, actors and coffee, we’ve got you covered.

1. Go to a Strip Club

Eleven of the city’s big name strip clubs in North Beach are offering free or discounted admission with your Macworld badge. They include the SF classic hotspots like the Hungry-i,  the Condor and the Garden of Eden as well as Centerfolds and the Gold Club.

It begs the question: do they think Macworld is exclusively a man’s world, or that all Macs are horny and lonely? You decide.

Extra tip: if you’re into multitasking — and don’t mind the smell of strawberry body oil while you eat — the Hustler Club reportedly has an excellent happy hour buffet.

Apple has just been awarded a rather elaborate patent for gloves you can use to operate a capacitive touchscreen. You know, like . Or these. Prior art, much?

As it sometimes does, the Apple Store went down in the wee hours of the morning, its virtual space on the Internet reserved by the yellow post-it — inscrutable sometimes-harbinger of new products — that we all know so well.

When the post-it was yanked off, though, Apple.com wasn’t host to a line of new products, but rather a darker and glossier HTML5 redesign.

Mizage, makers of the Divvy window management application, have come up with a clever way round the problem of migrating customers from traditional online purchases to official Mac App Store purchases: if you can prove you’ve bought their app twice, they’ll refund your original payment.

SAN FRANCISCO, Macworld 2011 — Proving that the show can go on without Apple, Macworld 2011 opens today and is bigger and better than ever.

Well, bigger and better than last year.

This is the second year of Macworld without Apple, but the show has attracted 10% more exhibitors than 2010 and is on track for 25,000 visitors, organizers say.

“The show is shaping up good,” Macworld general manager Paul Kent told CultofMac.com. “If the numbers go right, we’re going to have about a 25% increase in attendance.”

Flying is always a bit of a conflicted experience for me. On the one hand, I’m off on an adventure; on the other, I have to deal with unpredictable flight schedules, labyrinthine terminals and $9 burritos. But FlightTrack Pro — with its attractive, clean-looking pages offering an abundance of detailed information — makes everything better (except the burrito prices).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXPhoYAqRhE&feature=player_embedded

Apple’s new TV commercial for the iPad shows how versatile the device is. The iPad is… for students, teachers, for news, for reading. the iPad is.. iconic.

Even though San Francisco is the most expensive city in the frickin’ country you don’t have to break the bank to enjoy it.

In this post we’ve have put together a super savings guide to help you navigate the show and the city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xVccc22zI0&hd=1

You’ve got to watch this version of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer performed by the iBand on iPhones and iPads. It’s really pretty good!

And here’s their version of the Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkMFBSUH3pI&hd=1

Thanks John!

The white iPhone’s light-leakage issues may have been fixed with a new kind of paint, the Japanese site Macotakara reports.

As previously reported exclusively by CultofMac.com, the white iPhone 4 was delayed because light leaks into the camera ruining photos, especially when the internal flash is used.

According to the Macotakara, Apple has partnered with an unnamed Japanese company that has developed a “miracle painting material.” The new paint helps Apple control the thickness prior to application, solving the light-leakage issues. However, the Japanese blog posts gives new meaning to the term ‘vague.’ Details are scarce.

Either way, the white iPhone 4 looks to be launching soon. The device has already appeared in both wireless carriers’ websites in the U.K.

Via 9to5Mac.

Verizon is flip-flopping on unlimited iPhone data plans faster than a fish out of water.

This morning, Verizon’s chief operating officer, Lowell McAdam, told the Wall Street Journal that Verizon’s iPhone 4 customers would be treated to an unlimited $30-a-month data plan. Otherwise, the network wouldn’t be able to compete with AT&T, which has grandfathered a lot of iPhone customers to unlimited plans, even though it now offers only tiered plans.

But not so fast. McAdam now says the unlimited data plan will be a “temporary offer,” and that Verizon will also move to tiered pricing in the not too distant future. Better act fast.

How long do you think the unlimited data window will be? A week? A month? Six months?

WSJ: Verizon iPhone: $30 Unlimited Data (for Now)

Office for Mac 2011 is without a doubt a huge improvement over the frankly terrible 2004 and 2008 versions, but when you’ve been burned twice before, it’s hard to justify dropping $150 to find out.

Now Microsoft sends word that they’re doing something smart and offering a free 30 day trial of the entire Office for Mac 2011 productivity suite, giving unfettered access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook 2011.

The download is around 900MB and requires an Intel-based Mac and 2.5GB of space. It can be found on Microsoft’s Office of Mac trial download page.

It’s hard to really recommend a software suite like Office for Mac, especially when there’s free alternatives like Open Office. That said, if you can justify the money and you need what it’s offering, Office for Mac 2011 is a surprisingly excellent suite that feels right at home on the Mac operating system. Why not give it a try?

Back in early December as Verizon began to roll out its next generation LTE mobile broadband network in the United States, they offered customers their first taste of 4G not in a handset but with a USB modem, the LG VL600.

The only problem? It didn’t work on the Mac. That earned our ire at the time, since Verizon had suggested that 4G was what was going to “earn” them the iPhone.

Obviously, 4G wasn’t what brought the iPhone 4 to Verizon — it’s 3G only, just like the AT&T model — but it’s still nice to hear that Verizon intends on fixing the LG VL600 to work with Mac through new drivers, just in time for the sudden onslaught of Apple faithful who will be rushing to the network at the beginning of next month.

Last year, the Apple Peel 520 came along, a neat little kludge of a case that would turn your jailbroken iPod Touch into something a little more iPhone-ish thanks to a build in cell modem and SIM card slot. All told, the Peel 520 would allow you to make and receive calls and texts, while even giving a small boost to your Touch’s battery life.

The only problem? The Peel 520 was a bit bulky. Luckily, it seems like the makers of the original Peel did well enough with their product that they’re going ahead with a second-generation version, which is so noticeably sleeker that it could even be mistaken for a regular iPhone 4.

The improvements don’t end there, though. The Peel 520 couldn’t do data, but the new Peel gets GPRS. No one’s going to mistake EDGE speeds for the real iPhone’s 3G, but even so, it’s certainly nice to have in a pinch.

The next-gen Peel don’t have a price or release date yet, but give it a month or two and you’ll be able to find it through the usual Hong Kong importers soon enough.

Whether you are looking to home your card shark talents on your iPhone, find the best deals at MacWorld or grab an inexpensive AT&T iPhone 4, we have it all here. First up is a batch of iPhone App freebies, including “700 Solitaire Games,” which unsurprisingly offers plenty of practice for the favorite computer card game. Also, instead of just wandering around the upcoming MacWorld event, why not have an iPhone app that will point you to the most-interesting gadgets on the showroom? We wrap up our spotlight deals with some bargains on refurbished iPhone 4s, including a 16GB model for just $79 plus AT&T activation.

Along the way, we’ll also take a look at other Mac gadgets, including a 27-inch LED Cinema Monitor, an iPod/iPhone charger and some software for your kids. As always, details on all of these items, and much more, can be found on the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The Mac and iOS platforms are no stranger to games in which it is up to the player to fight off the zombie apocalypse, whether with a shotgun or a collection of cheerily bobbing anthropomorphic plants.

Atom Zombie Smasher is a different kind of zombie game entirely though. Sure, it’s Z-Day, but you aren’t the guy in the thick of things: you’re the G-Man watching an entire city go red with the undead from above, ordering your troops to secure city blocks and evacuate citizens, while you do everything you can to make sure you don’t need to deploy the nuclear option. Which you will, and which is half the fun anyway.

A procedurally generated RTS with a wicked sense of humor, Blendo Games’ Atom Zombie Smasher also supports up to four player co-op. If you’re interested, there”s a demo available on the official site to download, and the full version will only cost you $15 more.

Despite Steve Jobs’ promise that it would get better, AirPrint is currently only “all that and a bag of chips” for people who happen to be lucky enough to own a few specialized printers.

Google’s not waiting for Apple to get AirPrint together, though. They’ve just announced Google Cloud Print, a new service that allows you to register your network-connected printers with Google’s cloud services and connect them to your Gmail account. Once you’ve done so, you can print email and any attachment that Gmail can read (including HTML, DOC, PDF and more) directly from the Mobile Safari Gmail interface.

The ability to wirelessly print from Gmail using an iOS device is a pretty swank offering, but unfortunately, it’s not really Mac friendly right now. Enabling the feature allows of downloading the latest Chrome beta from the Cloud Print Website on the computer connected to the printer you want to use… but it’s Windows only, and because Chrome for Mac betas tend to lag behind the Windows beats in features, OS X users will have to wait for Google Cloud Print support to come to the platform… a timescale the search giant itself will only commit to as “coming soon.”

Research in Motion’s PlayBook Tablet could sell 4 million units in 2011, and 6 million devices in the first 12 months following its release, expected sometime this quarter. That’s the word from RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky, who Tuesday morning told investors of results from survey taken after the recent CES.

Although the survey figure is substantially above previous estimates of 1 million PlayBooks sold this year, 6 percent of the 1,100 people polled said they “likely” will buy the RIM tablet. The percentage is half that of a similar survey conducted in February 2010 just after Apple unveiled the iPad, Abramsky notes.

The Eastman Kodak Company has all but lost their patent infringement case against Apple over the image preview used in iOS today after an ITC judge dismissed Kodak’s claims.

An elderly Israeli woman returning from London was caught last Thursday trying to bring 44 iPhones into Jerusalem through Ben-Gurion International Airport by strapping them to her body.

Procrastinators and cheapskates rejoice. Today is your lucky day!

The popular coupon site Johnny Funcheap is offering Expo tickets for just $10. That’s a $15 savings (normally $25).

Just enter the priority code FunCheap.

Macworld 2011 starts on Thursday, January 27 and runs until Saturday, January 29. The show floor is open from 10am – 6:00pm all three days.

The evidence continues to mount that the iPhone 5 will contain a Near-Field Communication chip, with Bloomberg now agreeing that the next iPhone will be NFC capable.

If you’re looking for something to do in San Francisco during Macworld, eleven of the city’s strip clubs are offering half off admission with your Macworld badge.

When I first spotted this two-page centerfold ad in SF Weekly I wondered: do they think Macs are more randy or just more lonely than other tech people?

There are tech conferences every day of the week in San Francisco – this is the first time I’ve seen a big ad for a group of strip clubs promoting discounts for tech-conference goers.

Also: don’t they know a lot of the attendees are women? You can see from our last year’s “Faces of Macworld” gallery by Traci Dauphin that Macworld isn’t necessarily a man’s world. Dunno. Maybe I should gather a fistful of dollar bills and some geek girls for an expedition.

It was a half-empty or half-full quarterly revenue report for Verizon Tuesday. Just weeks from the Feb. 10 sale of Apple’s iPhone, Verizon fourth quarter profits fell $2.6 percent to $26.4 billion, a hair’s-breath from analyst expectations of $26.48 billion. However, the carrier also reported earlier today adding 872,000 postpaid customers, far exceeding Wall Street expectations of 646,000.

Although consumers could have put off a decision to join Verizon Wireless until the carrier begins selling the iPhone, subscriber growth was described as “spectacular” by one analyst. “The expectation of [Verizon] getting an iPhone appears not to have had an impact,” Stifel Nicolaus’ Christopher King told Reuters.