Apple has stopped selling MobileMe to customers, and told educational institutions to push free 60-day trials of the service as a stop-gap, so we know a relaunch is coming soon.

Rumor has it that the relaunch will see Apple start to realize its streaming iTunes ambitions with the addition of a music locker. Users would upload songs they want to be able to access from any device. This would allow Apple to compete with services like Spotify and Rdio without cutting the legs of their iTunes digital download empire out from under themselves.

We’ve heard these rumors from so many sources at this point that we’re pretty sure. What we haven’t heard anyone do yet, though, is put a price on the new locker service. Now Music Void is doing just that, saying that the MobileMe iTunes locker services will cost somewhere around $20 per year.

Yet more signs Apple wants to be in your TV. The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant is building a “Smart TV prototype,” an analyst told investors Friday, citing Asian suppliers. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported Apple is talking with TV manufacturers about embedding technology enabling mobile devices to stream video content to televisions.

A Smart TV would give Apple another product category worth $4 billion for each percent of the TV market the iPad-maker and its partners captured, writes Morgan Stanley analyst Kat Huberty. A Pioneer executive was quoted Thursday describing Apple’s entry into the market “a blessing for an industry trying to move the needle forward on sales.”

Ten years ago Apple bestowed a new operating system unto the world, Mac OS X. A merger of NeXTStep and the Classic Mac OS, OS X finally delivered Apple’s first major evolution in OS design after a half decade of failed attempts: Taligent, Copland, Rhapsody…

To teach new users how to use its new creation, for a few years Apple included an explanatory brochure titled Welcome to Mac OS X with every copy. These booklets provided a helpful introduction to the new OS. In honor of the tenth anniversary of OS X, here’s a look back at how Apple described things in 2001.

Despite the overwhelming demand for the iPad 2 and the supply shortages across the U.S., it seems the device isn’t too hard to get hold of if you have a friend high up in the Apple camp.

English writer, director, and funny-man Ricky Gervais got his iPad 2 courtesy of Jony Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design.

Gervais announced in a post on his blog this week:

So I got two parcels today. One was the new iPad 2 from its genius inventor Jony Ive (it’s a work of art).

So, if you’re finding it hard to get your hands on Apple’s second-generation iPad, or you don’t want to stand in line for the international launch this Friday, all you need to do is write a Bafta winning sitcom, perform a sell-out stand-up comedy show, make a record-breaking podcast and become friends with Jony Ive.

We start the day with three hardware items in the deal spotlight. First up is a number of iPod touch units, starting with an 8GB model for $149. Next are several iPads, including one 32GB Wi-Fi tablet for $429. Finally is a 32GB iPod video unit for just $100.

Along the way, we check out some iPad accessories, including screen protectors, screen cleaners and discounts on cases. As always, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Mac OS X celebrates its tenth birthday today. The groundbreaking operating system was introduced to the public on March 24, 2001. Mac OS X helped reverse Apple’s fortunes in the desktop PC market, and has underpinned a lot of Apple’s subsequent success. Most importantly, it spawned iOS, which runs today’s iPads and iPhones.

Below is the story of how OS X’s game-changing interface came about. The story gives some insight into corporate creativity at Apple. OS X’s interface started as a side project. But as soon as Steve Jobs got wind of it, it was fast-tracked. Jobs became intimately involved in its development — a scary prospect for the programmers working on it.

But the struggle wasn’t just in its development. Apple had to nail the switch from the old Mac OS to the new, or it could have sunk the company. Guess which ally was crucial to the transition — Apple’s old enemy, Microsoft.

With the launch of OS X, Jobs finally took the title of Apple’s permanent CEO. Prior to that he’d been the interim CEO, or iCEO, and OS X was the last major part of the company he needed to fix.

U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Ron Walker says he dropped his iPhone 4. That’s happened to us all, but at the time Walker was leaning out of a US Air Force plane door while preparing for a static line jump from 1,000 feet.

After the jump, Walker says he used the Find My iPhone app, and found his iPhone at the base of a tree in a forest. The phone was unscratched and worked fine, according to Walker.

The phone had a Griffin Motif case, and no other protection.

Go here to see photos of the actual phone.

iOS 4.3 is jailbreakable, but the iPad 2 isn’t… yet. The new A5 SoC presents a new and unique challenge for jailbreakers like the Dev Team, but if history is any guide, they’ll have a working jailbreak sooner or later, and quite possibly sooner rather than later, if a new tweet by Dev Team member p0sixninja is anything to go by.

Here’s hoping we’ll see an iPad 2 jailbreak in a few weeks: I’d like to cram a few more icons in my dock.

Ouch. Due to the vagaries of international time zones, it’s already March 25th in New Zealand, and that means that fans over there in Middle-Earth can order themselves an iPad 2… except even if you order one right now, you’re looking at 2-3 weeks before it is delivered. Imagine what that number will be like later today!

It’s not really a surprise: although Apple is going ahead with international orders, clearly they don’t have the supply to handle even America’s launch, let alone an international one. My guess is we’re looking at least a couple of months of iPad 2 scarcity before Apple can supply enough iPad 2s to everyone who wants one.

What does this mean for our international readers? The same as it meant for Americans: if you want an iPad 2 anywhere near launch day, you need to go to your nearest Apple Store and wait in line. Expect supplies to be even more constrained abroad than in the United States, though.

[via MacRumors]

Although the T-Mobile USA may not begin selling the iPhone for at least another year, across the ‘pond’, T-Mobile UK plans to offer a subsidized version of the iPad 2 Friday. The 16GB Wi-Fi and 3G iPad 2 will sell for $322 and $370, respectively, according to a Thursday report.

A two-year contract will be required for the 16GB Wi-Fi or 3G tablet. No 32GB or 64GB iPad 2 version will be available, the report says. Existing T-Mobile UK customers must pay $40 per month and a $322 initial payment, while new customers pay $43 and $370, respectively.

Apple may enjoy 50 percent growth for the next two years, fueled largely by the increasing demand for mobile applications. That’s the word of the founder and CEO of a research firm, speaking in a Wednesday interview. Forrester Research’s George Colony also predicted the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant’s revenue will soon pass IBM and HP.

Colony described an “app Internet” where users turn to mobile apps, rather than the Web. Apple is “going to be a $200 billion revenue company,” he predicts in a Bloomberg interview. Already the iPhone, iPod and iPad maker had a market capitalization topping $300 billion by the start of 2011. Analysts expect Apple sales will grow 50 percent to more than $100 billion this fiscal year, ending in September.

As an American who lived abroad for a decade, only to recently move back, I know the sting of overseas prices for Apple-products. In many ways, it feels that the rest of the world subsidizes America’s low prices on Apple products.

Case in point, this chart by Setteb.it, comparing iPad 2 prices in the US with 18 out of the 25 countries that will launch iPad 2 tomorrow, March 25th. This is the sort of data that just rubs salt on the wounds of a European, since even a base 16GB iPad 2 WiFi will cost about $175 more than it would have if they bought the iPad 2 in the States.

This might seem a little misleading, since Europe’s VAT is quite high, and usually hovers around 20%. However, Apple’s still passing on a premium to EU iPad 2 buyers, even after VAT is subtracted. For example, Brits looking to buy the 64GB iPad 2 3G will pay about $63 more for that model than yanks… and that’s after the British number has been adjusted for VAT.

Prices like these are why when I lived in Europe I would schedule all of my Apple purchases around trips to the States: the money you can save on buying a MacBook Pro and an iPad together in the States more than pays for the plane ticket.

[via TUAW]

Israeli company Tawkon sells mobile applications that “monitor” your exposure to mobile phone radiation. The idea is that if you experience a sudden spike of radiation while you’re talking, it’ll warn you so you can quickly hurl the phone as hard as you can across the room, douse yourself with lead paint, duck, cover, then resume the conversation.

We’ve seen Tawkon try to capitalize upon the Antennagate controversy to drive interest in their services before. Similarly, it looks like they wanted to capitalize upon the tragedy at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant to launch a renewed push into the App Store.

Now Steve Jobs himself has told them enough panic-mongering is enough: in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and the resulting wave of radiation panics here in the United States, Jobs told Tawkon that Apple has “no interest” in publishing their app.

Tawkon’s launching on Cydia instead, which is fine, but I’m with Steve on this one: given that the iPhone has no native radiation-detecting mechanism (and therefore isn’t accurate), combined with the fact that there is no medical basis for fearing cellphone radiation exposure and the heightened fears about radiation both domestically and abroad, this just isn’t an app that needs to be on the App Store.

If you run a WordPress blog either on your own server or through WordPress.com, your blog just became Flipboard-style cool on iPad, thanks to an awesome new feature which turns any WP blog into a beautiful, flickable animated magazine… all through the magic of HTML5.

Designed by Onswipe, the feature lets you flick through stories, tap into them to drill down through them and swipe to browse. The animations are gorgeous. Here’s an example, though you’ll need to have your iPad handy to see the magic.

If you’ve got a blog hosted on WordPress.com, this functionality should have already gone live for you. On the other hand, if you’re self-hosting a WordPress blog, you’re just a plugin away from making the functionality live for your visitors.

Very, very cool. Let’s see if we can get Leander to spring here on Cult of Mac.

For some time, Apple has viewed its Apple TV device like stamp collecting – an interesting hobby. The concept is intriguing, but the real money could be made if there was a more direct connection to your living-room TV, hence analyst speculation the Cupertino, Calif. company might someday get into the TV business. That day could be sooner than expected amid a Wednesday report TV makers are considering putting key Apple TV technology inside new TV sets.

The technology, known as AirPlay currently streams video and audio from Apple devices, such as the iPad or iPhone, to the Apple TV set-top box. However, now TV manufacturers, looking for a way to revive slumping sales, are talking with Apple about putting the technology directly in new TVs.

MarsEdit is the best blogging tool for OS X, bar none. If you do blogging for money or just for the love of it, MarsEdit is a dream come true for you. It will save you lots of hassle and hours of time.

Disney shareholders have re-elected Steve Jobs to the company’s board of directors, despite opposition from the AFL-CIO, the labor union federation.
As previously reported, the AFL-CIO opposed Jobs’s re-election because of his poor health and his job as CEO of Apple. The union argued that Jobs already had his hands full and advised shareholders not ro re-elect him.

Nonetheless, Jobs was re-elected on Wednesday at Disney’s annual shareholder meeting in Utah, according to Bloomberg.

With 7% of Disney’s stock, Jobs is the largest individual shareholder in the company. He has been a director at Disney since 2006, when Disney bought his other company, Pixar, for $7.4 billion.

First up in the deal spotlight is seven refurbished MacBook Air laptops from the Apple Store, starting with a 64GB unit with a 11.6-inch screen for $849. Also on tap is “Monkey Island: Special Editition for Mac,” just one of the two free downloads from MacUpdate. We close out today’s featured items with a 27-inch LED Cinema Display for $849.

Along the way, we check out a number of cases for your iPad, as well as a bargain on an iPod touch and various accessories for your iPhone and iPod. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Textbooks based on the iPad gained a boost Wednesday. Interactive learning developer Inkling announced a “multi-million dollar financing” deal with two educational publishing giants. McGraw-Hill and Pearsons became minority investors in the San Francisco-based company which produces software enabling students to interact with iPad-based textbooks.

“Until now, digital textbooks have failed to gain real traction because they add little value over the printed book,” Inkling founder and CEO Matt MacInnis said. Inkling’s software allows readers to add comments and share textbooks with friends. “We build every textbook from the ground up for the iPad to create a more engaging learning experience,” MacInnis adds.

As promised, here’s the statement from Apple over the removal of the Exodus International “gay cure” app.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Wednesday:

“We removed the Exodus International app from the App Store because it violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people.” (Emphasis ours).

It’s short and sweet — but opens up a big can of worms for other groups or companies who may have apps approved that later are targeted as offensive to “large groups of people.” In the case of removing the Manhattan Declaration, a “large group” was about 6,700 online signatures, for Exodus it reached 150,000.

Apple has never re-instated an offensive app after pulling it — but I suspect there will be some backlash on this one.

It seems only fitting the “father” of Mac OS X would take the software’s 10th anniversary for his exit. Betrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac software Engineering, and a long-time Steve Jobs associate, Wednesday announced he’s leaving the tech giant. His replacement has shepherded the next-generation of MacOS X — 10.7 “Lion” which includes greater ties to Apple’s mobile iOS platform.

Serlet, who holds a Computer Science doctorate, announced he wants to “focus less on products and more on science.” He described the upcoming Mac 10.7 as “a great release and the transition should be seamless.” Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac Software Engineering, demonstrated Mac OS X 10.7 Lion to the media in late 2010.

Cult of Mac broke the story of the Exodus International app getting removed from the iTunes store yesterday evening. Cupertino still hasn’t opened for business yet, so we are still awaiting a statement from Apple on its policy for content in the store.

The president of Exodus International Alan Chambers warned via Twitter last night that it may be open season on other apps that draw protest.

“It’s official, the @ExodusInl App is no longer in the @AppStore. Incredibly disappointing. Watch out, it could happen to you.”

We’ll keep you posted.

I’m madly in love with my 11-inch MacBook Air, but sometime I wish I had a little more screen real estate for it… an external display that was as portable as it is.

Toshiba’s new portable LCD, the creatively christened Mobile LCD Monitor, looks like just the thing: it’s an iPad-thin 14-inch unit, allowing you to add a 1366×768 secondary display driven entirely by USB, no AC adapter required.

Remember Word Lens, the jaw-dropping iOS Babelfish that allowed you to just point your iPhone at a sign in Spanish and turning it into English (and vice-versa?)

Well, if you’ve got an iPad 2, good news: your camera-equipped tablet is now fully supported in the latest version of the free app.

Of course, “free” should be surrounded by insidious quotes, because in reality, there’s nothing free about Word Lens. You can download it for free, sure, but the app does nothing without buying either the Spanish to English or English to Spanish modules as an in-app purchase… each of which costs $9.99.

Word Lens is still one of the biggest jaw-dropper programs on the App Store, though. If you’ve got an iPad 2 and are just itching to show someone what it can do, picking up Word Lens for free $9.99 is a choice option.

If you haven’t scored your iPad 2 yet, and are also looking for some sporty wheels, high-end Mercedes-Benz customizer Brabus has the package for you. Updating their iBusiness package that we reported on last year, the new version modernizes hardware and ups the specs for this next (fast) lap around the sun.

The iBusiness 2.0 package is available for all S-class models. A pair of iPad 2s on adjustable keyboard trays are installed front and center (in the rear seats). These are married to a trunk-mounted Mac mini with internet access and a 15″ widescreen display – in addition to the seatback headrest displays! Videoconferencing, in-flight television and passenger control of many vehicle functions are possible. A 64GB iPod Classic helps keep your tunes accessible, and WiFi and USB link it all together.

The demo model isn’t too shabby in the automotive department either: the Brabus 800 iBusiness 2.0 is housed in a Mecerdes S600 sedan that has 788 horsepower, goes 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds, and comes with rear privacy curtains and an optional Yachting wood trim package. Sweet.

Considering how much time I would spend in this car, there seem to be a shortage of cupholders…

[via Motor Trend]