We start off with deals for the iPhone and iPad. First up is a batch of free iPhone applications, including “The Thumb,” which claims it will help you increase your typing speed. Next is a number of iPhone applications with reduced prices, such as “National Parks HD,” a database of trail maps. Also, there is a bit of hardware for your iPad gaming. The JOYSTICK-IT comes in a two-pack and sticks over the on-screen control pad.

Along the way, we also take a look at other Apple gadgets, including cases for your iPhone and iPad, as well as software for your Mac. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

It’s official: The iPad 2 launch will be March 2.

Apple is issuing press invites to a special media event on March 2 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, according to Loopinsight.com.

“Come see what 2011 will be all about,” says the invite. Looks like Apple is pretty confident about the iPad 2.

The event starts at 10:00 am. It’s the same venue Apple traditionally uses to introduce products.

Given how wildly popular the Photo Booth software that ships on every new Mac is amongst trout-lipped, mall-loitering teenagers from sea to shining sea, it’s amazing to me that Apple’s gone four years without bringing Photo Booth to iOS. Recent plist references in iOS 4.3 beta firmware suggest, however, that Apple is soon to remedy that omission as soon as the iPad 2 drops… implying that Apple’s simply been waiting for the whole family of iOS devices to have a front-facing webcam. In addition to Photo Booth, iPhone users can also take advantage of various iPhone photo edit settings formula to enhance their selfies and images. Learn more about editing selfies like TikTok on iPhone.

Now a new patent has been found by Jack Purcher over at Patently Apple, not only confirming that Cupertino’s engineers have been working on bringing Photo Booth to iPhones, but also suggesting that it might be a more radical revision than first expected, taking advantage of the gamut of iOS hardware, including mic, GPS and accelerometer.

Panic, the makers of popular Mac FTP client Transmit, quip about Dell’s outright theft of their official logo: “If only Dell charged the Apple Tax, they could afford to draw their own truck.”

But at least the Dell Tax was enough to cover Photoshopping in one of their monitors!

Although the public is used to seeing Steve Jobs as the face of Apple, a growing number of consumers are comfortable purchasing products from the Cupertino, Calif. company even if the iconic iPod salesman is not at the helm. That’s the finding of a recent survey comparing consumer reactions to questions surrounding Jobs’ health.

Some 93 percent of people questioned in a RBC Capital Markets and ChangeWave survey said a change of Apple leadership would either have no impact or would not alter their buying choices. This compares to a June 2008 survey finding 18 percent of people would be less likely to purchase Apple products if Jobs left the CEO position.

If you want to know how much (or how little) you’re making compared to your peers, check out this new iPhone app.

Called Salary Checker, offered gratis in iTunes, it harnesses data from international recruiter Robert Walters.

Beloved teen detective Nancy Drew is racing her blue roadster into the digital age with a new interactive iPad game.

Called “Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch,” it’s a game/story hybrid. Aimed at girls age 9-14, the interactive gamebook app lets players decide how the story unfolds as they play games and solve mysteries, both big and small.

Despite Apple’s recent 6.8 percent drop in share prices, the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone and iPad maker has a bright future, one bullish analyst told investors Wednesday. “We believe a sustainable 25-30 percent growth rate in earnings could be achievable through 2015,” writes Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster.

Why? He believes the iPhone will grow at 35 percent a year, selling 200 million handsets in 2015 – with the iPad expanding at an even faster pace. Backing up his claim, the analyst offers the iPhone’s dramatic audience increase since bursting onto the smartphone scene in 2007.

I realize how nerdy this sounds, but I hate a mismanaged cable. I can’t stand it when the cables behind my TV get tangled together like a giant snake pit. I also hate having to untangle my headphones cord every time I get them out.

So I was happy when I stumbled upon the Nite Ize booth at CES this year because their Gear Ties aren’t just good, they’re great. I love these little dudes. They’ve worked so well for me, they’re become some of my favorite new products.

Check the video for the full review.

You won’t find a Mac sitting on the desk of 30 percent of Americans, or an iPhone in the pockets of 30 percent of movie-goers, but in the world of Hollywoodland, Apple products rule the roost, appearing in almost thirty percent of all top movies at the YU.S. box office in 2010.

Apple products popped up in a surprising number of movies last year, including Iron Man 2,Toy Story 3, The Other Guys and the utterly execrable Kick Ass. All together, Apple soundly managed to beat out Chevrolet, Ford and Nike on the list of top product-placing companies.

Heralded as a revolution in the way companies advertised their products in-app, iAds has instead ended up being a bit of a dud, with Apple struggling to fill advertising spaces even as developers clamor to embrace the service.

To rectify the situation, Apple’s just rolled out an uncharacteristic drop in asking price: they’ve cut the minimum required spending for iAds from a heady $1 million to a more reasonable $500,000.

The move is meant to attract smaller business to iAds who couldn’t otherwise afford it. It should be a good thing, although once Apple starts allowing business to spend smaller, I wonder if iAd’s perfect 100% ad renewal rate will hold up.

What does this mean to you as an end user? Not a thing, except maybe you’ll be seeing an influx of new iAds to replace the tired old ones you’ve already seen to death.

“Stay tuned and buckled up.” According to sources speaking to Techcrunch, Apple has far from abandoned their premier Final Cut Pro software after more than a year without updates. It’s coming, and is supposedly slated to be the “biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago.” Yowza.

Although details are scant on what will be new, one of Techcrunch’s sources say that Final Cut Pro has been built back up from its marrow, with the changes encompassing everything from low-level architecture to a complete redesign of the user interface (a resdesign which will hopefully go over better than Apple’s redesign of iMovie’s interface a few years back).

The changes are reportedly “dramatic and ambitious,” and will answer all concerns that Apple’s abandoned the pros in their grab for consumers. If Techcrunch is right, Final Cut Pro will be hitting in Spring 2011, possibly to coincide with the National Association of Broadcasters conference on April 9th through 14th.

Fscklog has just posted a photo of what they believe are the specs to the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which should be due out any day now.

Here are the specs, translated from German

• 2.3Ghz Sandy Bridge Dual-Core Intel Core i5 Processor with a 3MB L3 Cache

• 4GB of DDR3 RAM clocked at 1333MHz

• A 320GB hard drive

• a 13.3-inch diagonal LED backlit display with a 1280×800 pixel resolution.

• Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of DDR3 RAM.

• An integrated FaceTime-HD camera

• An 8x Superdrive

• Two USB 2 ports, an SD card reader, FireWire 800, a MiniDisplay Port, Ethernet and, most interestingly, Thunderbolt port (this is very possibly the Apple-branded implementation of Light Peak we’ve been hearing about).

Overall? It seems the 13-inch model is not the radical re-imagining we’ve been hearing about for the last few days. It’s not made of Liquid Metal, there’s no SSD and the new MBP has an identical chassis design to the old model. Short of the new Thunderbolt port and the leap to Sandy Bridge, these aren’t markedly different than the last generation of 13-inch MBPs. That said, the 13-incher is the entry-level MBP model. Perhaps Apple has something more radical afoot for the 15- and 17-inch models.

After the jump, a look at the new MacBook Pro’s marketing materials and a close-up view of the Thunderbolt port.

We all know that Steve Jobs is obsessed with crafting top-notch customer experiences. Of course, he’s famous for being dismissive of focus groups, but did you know he spies on customers at his local Apple Store?

I curse MobileMe, but I rely on MobileMe. So do many Mac users, it’s easy to setup and it generally works. However sometimes your info gets mixed up with duplicates or omissions, or a device in your sync setup can get stuck and won’t send or receive new data.

The basic procedure for resetting sync data involves taking the most complete copy of your data and propagating it through all other systems. Pick one system to become your Primary Mac for the steps below.

https://www.cultofmac.com/43040/get-a-u-s-itunes-account-anywhere-in-the-world-how-to/

If you’re wondering were all the comments went, they’re currently being imposted into Disqus. We’ve switched to Disqus, a commenting platform with all kinds of great features, including great social integration, notifications and multimedia.

When it’s up and running, it promises to be a great system. However, importing the old comments can sometimes take a while: maybe even two or three days.

That’s for existing comments. New comments should post immediately. Fingers crossed it’s up and running quickly. In the meantime, please leave any questions, comments or complaints in — you guessed it — the new comments system.

And thanks for your patience — Leander.

FireCore LLC has announced the release of an update to the Mac OS X version of Seas0nPass. The new release allows you to perform an untethered jailbreak on Apple’s latest AppleTV running 4.1.1 (the equivalent of iOS 4.2.1). The Windows version of the untethered jailbreak isn’t currently available, but will be at a later date.

According to FireCore, the new version of Seas0nPass is based on the jailbreak created by the Chronic Dev Team and the latest Beta3 version of aTV Flash (black) is compatible with Seas0nPass, GreenPois0n and Pwnage Tool jailbreaks.

You can read more about this on FireCore’s blog and you can download Seas0nPass now for free.

Raoul-Gabriel Urma writes:

We are computing students from Imperial College London and created a website dedicated to Steve Jobs allowing members of the public to leave their birthday comments and this way to support him while he is currently dealing with serious health issues.

Our aim is to allow as many people to wish him a happy birthday this way letting him know he has a back-up of so many.

Leave your best wishes here: Happy Birthday Steve Jobs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pT_2E5xI0

Tiny Wings – ($0.99) iPhone – Games

The next iPhone game to join the likes of Doodle Jump and Angry Birds as hugely popular titles that seem to cling to the top of the App Store charts for months on end could be Tiny Wings – a simple one-button arcade game based on a dream of flying. Featuring a loveable little bird whose wings are too small to fly, the aim of this game is to slide up and down hills as fast as you can, flapping your wings when the time is right to achieve a moment’s flight… before gravity brings you back down again.

Fly as far as you can, fulfilling each of your tasks to upgrade you nest, and try to unlock all 27 of the tricky OpenFeint achievements. While the object of the game seems fairly easy, it features enough of a challenge to ensure you’re quickly addicted to its charm, and you won’t be able to put it down. Its most unique feature is the procedural generated graphics that make the beautiful visuals look different every day you play. Tiny Wings is a remarkably simple idea that makes for a wonderful game.

[xrr rating = 80%]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2H–IsTL_E&feature=player_embedded

Tap DJ – ($1.99) iPhone – Music

Not many DJ applications for iOS devices quite deliver the experience you get from using Tap DJ. Its bucket-load of features, together with its brilliantly designed and incredibly intuitive user interface, make it the ultimate pocket DJ application. Featuring integrated access to your iPod library, a 9 pad sampler, voice recording, FX, a 3-band equalizer for each deck, and lots more – it’s never been easier to mix, scratch, and add FX to your favorite tracks.

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, Tap DJ makes it unbelievably simple to play around with your music and create mixes you never thought were possible with an iPhone app. Boasting many of the features you’d find in a pricey desktop application, but at a fraction of the cost, there’s never been a better time to try your hand at being a DJ!

[xrr rating = 100%]

That secret Apple Store retail meeting on Sunday we reported this morning? It looks like our instinct was right, as Kara Swisher at All Things D is now reporting that Apple will be holding a special media event on March 2nd to unveil the second-generation iPad.

Citing multiple sources, All Things D says that the date is firm, and that it will take place in San Francisco… likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. If true, that means we should see invitations sent out to the press today or tomorrow.

The iPad 2 is likely to ship in late March or early April, and will feature a thinner design, better sound, and FaceTime capabilities, as well as a faster dual-core A5 CPU and double ram. It’s also rumored to run on both Verizon and AT&T.

We start with some free apps for your iPhone. The iTunes App Store is offering a number of new iPhone and iPod touch apps for free, including “uClock,” a binary clock. Also on tap, as speculation swirls Apple is readying a revamp of its MacBook Pro, the Cupertino, Calif. firm is offering several MacBook Pros, starting at $999 for a 2.4GHz model. We wrap up the spotlight with AT&T selling 8GB iPhone 3GS handsets for just one cent — plus the $36 activation fee.

Along the way, we check out more iPhone 4 cases, deals on iPod touch cases and software and accessories for the iPhone and Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Just as Wintek has scored the contract to make touchscreens for the white iPhone 5, Chinese workers at the Taiwanese company’s Suzhou plant have urged Apple to look into the slate of chemical poisonings at the plant which they said could still hurt their health.

The issue is hexyl hydride, a chemical used by Wintek between May 2008 and August 2009 instead of alcohol to speed up production of Apple touchscreens. In an open letter published in a local Chinese newspaper, workers referred to hexyl hydride as “a killer that strikes invisibly.”

Symptoms of hexyl hydride poisoning include sudden numbness in hands, swelling and pain in the feet, tiredness and faintness. Long-term exposure can lead to permanent nerve and eye damage. 137 Wintek workers had been hospitalized because of the poisonings.

A German man tired of relying on public services to ferry him around in his wheelchair has developed a crowdsourced iPhone app with info on access to public places.

Though Raul Krauthausen doesn’t lament the services available for the physically handicapped in Germany – special taxis and grocery delivery, etc. – he wanted more flexibility.

“Sometimes I feel I’m treated like a child who isn’t allowed to decide specific things by myself,” said the 30-year-old who suffers from a genetic disorder that makes his bones brittle. “I want to remain flexible and not be dependent on when a driving service has time to pick me up.”