After nine years, iPod co-creator Tony Fadell has opted to exit Apple to get a hand in “green” tech.

Fadell is credited with hatching the idea of a hard-drive-based digital music player in the 1990s.  He first took the concept to Real Networks, but left after just six weeks due to clashes with CEO Rob Glaser.

Fadell found fertile territory for the project at Apple, where he was the first member of its iPod hardware engineering team in 2001. Working with Jon Rubenstein, Michael Dhuey and Jonathan Ive in under a year, the iPod was born.  

Fadell was was promoted to vice president of iPod engineering in 2004, then named senior vice president of the iPod Division in April 2006.

His final exit isn’t that much of a surprise: Fadell stepped down from that position in 2008, staying on in an advisory role to Steve Jobs.

The forty-year-old Fadell kept mum about the motives behind his decision but told the New York Times that he was saying adios to Apple to advise companies and pursue private investments with a focus on green technology.

“My primary focus will be helping the environment by working with consumer green-tech companies,” he said. “I’m determined to tell my kids and grand kids amazing stories beyond my iPod and iPhone ones.”

Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but why settle for a measly thousand words when you can cram 10,000 into one panoramic mega-photo!? Well take heart shutter bugs, Autostitch Panorama is here to give you the verbose images you so desire.

Autostitch is super simple to use. It works like this. Using your favorite camera app, take a bunch of pictures of whatever you want in your mega-photo. As you snap away, try to have each photo you take overlap about 1/3 of any other photo you take (so AutoStitch knows how the images fit together). When you’re content you’ve captured everything, import all those photos into AutoStitch, hit one button, and boom! baby, Autostitch births a giant panoramic image just for you!

“But surely the images don’t look that good,” you say in half murmur. Not so! Since picture quality was my primary concern, I decided to put this little app through some tests, creating panoramic mega-photos of all sorts of different sceneries.

With its granite coloring and design, the Incipio Tribal Regrind ECO Case actually looks like a piece of carved stone.

This iPhone case is made out of 100% recycled silicone, and at least 20% of that is waste materials from other Incipio products. This makes The Tribal Regrind ECO Case one of the greenest molded cases ever.

Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.

Apple is working on two new iPhones for a summer launch, including an iPhone for Verizon, the Wall Street Journal claims.

While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.

While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.

A Verizon iPhone has looooong been rumored, the Journal story is a major step towards confirmation. The Journal cites “people briefed on the matter.” Apple, AT&T and Verizon all declined to comment.

A Verizon iPhone would be a huge win for Apple. Verizon is the biggest carrier in the U.S, with 91.2 million customers. It’s network is reputed to be the fastest and most reliable.

As the launch of the iPad approaches, Apple has published a slew of guided video tours of the new device.

Published on Apple’s website, the tours include guides on how to use Safari, Mail, YouTube, and the iWork suite.

The tours also include a closer look at the iBooks app, which now seems to have previously-undisclosed features like word search, table of contents and a ratings/review popup. The tour also reveals a system-wide Dictionary.

All in all, the iPad looks really slick. I can’t wait for Saturday.

We start off a new week with a deal on unibody MacBook Pro laptops. The refurbished units start at $1,499 for a 2.53GHz model. Next up is a round of always popular App Store Freebies, including “Dungeon Run,” a game for your iPhone and iPod touch. We also check out Sony’s Digital Media Port for the iPod, allowing you to listen to tunes stored on your pod on your Sony stereo.

We also check out some storage options and other accessories. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

The 10.6.3 update has just been released and includes a raft of bug fixes for QuickTime, OpenGL and more.

The 437.2MB update is available via Software Update and is recommended for all users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

The list of fixes, enhancements and improvements is after the jump:

We’ve all heard the saying, “the only thing better than an iPad is a free iPad” (and if you haven’t, you have now, because I just said it). No, we’re not crazy enough to be giving away free iPads. But we know who are: the folks over at VIVmag.

Although it’s never going to replace the iPod in most people’s pockets, Microsoft’s done a lot to overcome the initial missteps with their Zune line of portable media players.

In fact, if not for the overwhelming advantages of the App Store, I’d recommend the Zune HD to people over the iPod Touch. It’s a fantastic media player with a beautiful high-definition screen and a great interface, and it’s available at a wonderfully down-to-earth price: the 32GB Zune HD only costs $199 compared to the 32GB iPod Touch’s price of $299.

Only the Zune platform’s woeful app marketplace makes it a sucker buy for those who want the most of their PMPs: if all you want to do is watch movies or listen to MP3s, the 32GB Zune HD is a great deal.

Now, Microsoft is teasing the imminent release of the 64GB Zune HD. There’s no price available yet, but my guess would be $299, which is $100 cheaper than the 64GB iPod Touch. Whether or not you think that’s a good deal depends a lot on how invested you are in the App Store, but if you’re looking for a great, next-gen PMP at an affordable price, this is one Microsoft product that even an Apple fan can feel pretty good about owning.

Although some questioned Apple’s decision to support HTML 5 over the dominant Flash technology used in so many online ads and graphics, it appears CEO Steve Jobs may have the last laugh. A video platform company Monday announced it will convert Flash videos to HTML 5 for such publishing heavyweights as the New York Times and Time magazine.

As a result, we may see the two when Apple unleashes the iPad on April 3.

Eager to plunge your Companion Cube through a gravity-defying dimensional riff in pursuit of the ephemeral promise of imaginary cake? Dying to invisibly sneak up on a sandwich-munching Heavy and slide a butterfly knife between his vertrebrae? Have a zombie-killing date scheduled with three buddies in New Orleans’ French district? Want to do all of it on your Mac?

Well, good news! Valve Software’s games delivery service, Steam, is now accepting Mac beta testers. It’s easy to sign up: all you need to do is go to the page and log in with your Steam user name and password. A quick poll and system check later, and you’ll be officially entered.

I’ve entered, and so should you: perhaps a Cult of Mac Left 4 Dead II multiplayer night is in our future later this month.

Tube a company from Biel/Bienne, Switzerland makes an iPhone case out of old used bicycle tires. The tubes are collected from bicycle dealers and are specifically from the 80s. So i-tubes are totally green and retro at the same time. Shut up!

Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.

You know the dilemma. You’re going out to the club with your friends and you don’t want to take your bulky wallet and your iPhone, but you need them both. The ID Credit Card case from Case-Mate has got your back! The ID case allows you to bring both your ID and your credit card in one convenient iPhone case.

Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.

The iPad has a lot of untapped potential as an image editing tablet… but the only way to load your images on-the-go is to lug a laptop around with you or spring for the iPad Camera Connection Kit, which gives users a couple of options to load images on their iPad: either by connecting their digicam through USB or, if all else fails, slap in an SD card and read your snapshots off of physical media.

It’s not a bad solution, though we’d prefer a USB slot. The only problem is that up until now, the Camera Connection Kit has been MIA on the Apple Store. Well, no longer: you can now order the kit for $29.00, with a ship date of late April.

I’m actually less interested than the iPad Camera Connection Kit for loading images onto my iPad — I’ll always be able to slurp in photos through iTunes — but I can’t help but wonder if the Jailbreaking community’s going to figure out a way to allow SD cards plugged into the card reader to function as expandable storage on the iPad. That right there is going to give a lot of incentive to people to hack their devices.

Just like a Reese’s Cup with its perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate, the Sena Walletskin case has taken two great items, an iPhone and a wallet and combined them into one great wallet case.

Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.

The iPad may be selling like gangbusters, but an interesting survey done by NPD suggests that it’s still not the ideal device for a slim majority of computer users: amongst surveyed 18-34 year olds, 51% said they would rather have a more conventional portable like a laptop or netbook than an iPad. Even Apple owners aren’t totally convinced: 44% said they’d rather have a MacBook than an iPad.

According to NPD’s vice president of industry analysis, Stephen Baker: “The most interested potential iPad customers see it primarily as a music device, or for its internet access capabilities.”

If you”re curious about how you’ll browse the App Store on your iPad, look no further than this video.

It’s a familiar and intuitive experience. In short, it’s more like browsing the App Store through iTunes on your Mac than launching the App Store on your iPhone, with apps displayed in multiple columns and big, beautiful Coverflow.

The one big thing that stands out to me about the video is that much like the launch of the iPhone App Store, developers are still experimenting with how to price, name and list their apps.

Understandably, iPad apps cost more than their iPhone versions… but expect a lot of fluctuation here, as App Store developers try to figure out if the iPad App Store can escape the $0.99 curse of iPhone apps.

It’s also interesting the naming conventions developers are using to differentiate their iPad versions from the iPhone apps are all over the place. Fieldrunners for iPad is listed right below Flight Control HD, and XL is also a naming convention that is gaining traction. Presumably the different naming schemes will be consolidated at some point… my guess with a little bit of strong-arming on behalf of Apple.

Personally, I prefer HD, which not only plays up the iPad’s higher-resolution display but also keeps extraneous characters down to a bare minimum.

[via Mac Stories]

According to 9to5Mac, Apple has started sending out shipping notifications to the earliest iPad pre-order customers.

WiFi only, of course. Curiously, even though it’s only March 29th, those who chose expedited shipping are being told to expect delivery on April 3rd. Don’t expect yours early… but do expect a lot of incremental iPad status updates like this in your newsfeeds this week.

What about you guys? Have you gotten your shipping notifications yet? Excited? Let us know in the comments.

Apple could ship 8-10 million iPads in 2010, or 2.5 million tablet devices within the first three months of this year, one analyst told investors Monday. If correct, the amount would far exceed the prevailing Wall Street expectation for 5 million iPads for all of calendar year 2010.

Morgan Stanley analyst Kat Huberty said her optimism is fueled by “strong initial pre-orders.” Indeed, because each 1 million iPads shipped translates to $0.25 of earning per share, the Cupertino, Calif. company is on track for a “significant earnings upside.”

According to Steve Jobs (as relayed by MediaPost), a mere four days after putting the iPad in eager customers hands, Apple’s going to launch the “next big thing,” a new “revolutionary” service to take the tech world by storm. But it’s not going to be a gadget. It’s an advertising network.

Meet iAd, another tin-eared Apple brand name that may be creatively bereft, but certainly gets the point across: a mobile advertising network for iPhone OS devices.

Of course, this won’t take any one by surprise who has been following the recent mobile advertising tiffs between Apple and Google. In January, Apple bought mobile advertising company Quattro for $275 million… a few months after Google had snapped up AdMob.

Apple’s also been warning developers from creating apps that use location-based data to serve up ads from competing mobile ad networks. Guessing that Apple would roll their own mobile ad network soon wasn’t a matter of prophecy.

At first blush, it seems weird that Cupertino would roll-out another big product so close to the iPad launch, but there’s little to lose here. Apple’s going to want developers to start building iAd functionality into their apps. This isn’t a consumer product or service, after all… it’s a developer service that will be completely invisible to most users.

As long as this isn’t another Mobile Me fiasco, launching iAd sooner rather than later shouldn’t take any of the luster off of the iPad launch.

Steve Jobs once again made Barron’s annual list of the 30 most respected CEOs worldwide.

Jobs, however, stands out among the global tycoons — other repeat honorees include Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and John Chambers of Cisco — being called “probably the world’s most valuable CEO.” His career is called “cinematic” and on the eve of the iPad roll-out, Barron’s says, “America could use 1,000 more like him.”

Praise aside, unlike many other rankings, this one isn’t a popularity contest but is based on stock performance.

Here’s why, for Barron’s, Jobs just may be the MVP of the business game:

“Probably the world’s most valuable CEO is Steve Jobs of Apple, as shown by stock dips on news of his medical problems. Apple recently hit a record, with a market value topping $200 billion, a reflection of the Street’s confidence that a healthy Jobs (at least from what we can tell) continues to keep Apple ahead of the game. Jobs likely accounts for $25 billion or more of Apple’s market value.”

This is the latest accolade for Jobs, who was also named most admired celebrity entrepreneur and CEO of the decade recently.

Via Apple Insider

Whether questions like “Will the iPad will live up to its hype?” or “Should I stay or should I go to the Apple store?” are what keep you on edge, now you can ask Steve Jobs.

Head over to Ask El Jobso, the oracle for Apple lovers.

The random response generator was devised by the team at The Apple Lounge after one of their bloggers got a one-word answer from Jobs, generating a ton of  news stories last week.

Kinda like the Magic 8 Ball for Apple addicts, some of the answers generated are from real email answers that the King of Cupertino has recently fired off to people.

Let us know if El Jobso solves your dilemmas big and small.

I would try and come up with a great package theme for this week’s giveaway, but there really is no correlation between these apps. Great bundle, though.

To enter to win these eight sweet apps, just tag us in your Facebook status. Contest ends at 5pm EST Tuesday and we’ll pick 5 random status taggers to win these 8 apps:

Economy: This app gives you a snapshot of the US economy (and also for individual states) by providing the latest economic indicators and tracking the history of these indicators across the past few months, years, and decades.

Gas Cubby: Gas Cubby is the ultimate tool for tracking gas mileage and vehicle maintenance. Whether you’re a hypermiler, or just want a reminder to change the oil, Gas Cubby will save you money and keep your vehicle operating at its peak.

DefenderMan: Sets you in the cockpit of a fast paced vertical shooter. Fight off the robot invaders as they swarm from all directions.

ReactorBots: A real-time strategy game that puts you in command of several robots with a single mission – wipe out a viral robot infestation that has overrun the power mines.

WebToolbox: Ever wish you could get more out of the Safari browser for iPhone/iPod Touch? Now you can!

Rocket Taxi: It’s never been easier to get a Cab! Rocket Taxi uses your current location (by GPS or WiFi) to find the nearest taxi companies around you for a quick service. Rocket Taxi is ideal for the frequent traveler or the occasional taxi user.

TouchPad: Tired of having a keyboard and mouse laying around in your living room? Get rid of that lousy setup with TouchPad! Use your iPhone or your iPod touch to remotely control your computer through WiFi (wireless network). With TouchPad’s intuitive use, you’ll feel right at home if you have already used a track pad on a MacBook. It’s almost like having a micro laptop in your hands!

Feathers: Decorate your tweets with Feathers!

Although they are supposed to be mortal enemies, Steve Jobs was just spotted chatting amiably with Google’s Eric Schmidt at a coffeeshop in downtown Palo Alto, reports Gizmodo.

Overheard from the conversation were two lines by Jobs. Enthusiastically, “They’re going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it.” Which seemed to be about web content, said the tipster. And, “Let’s go discuss this somewhere more private,” after they noticed the crowd gathering around… Schmidt was very quiet, listening, and Jobs was doing a lot of the talking.

And as Giz notes, what’s that black thing on the table? An iPad maybe?

Someone just forwarded me this hilarious story about a woman who was pinned to the floor by her Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is a big, heavy machine and can weigh upwards of 40 lbs. The story circulated on an Apple consultant mailing list recently. Here it is, typos and all:

This is by far one of the funniest tech calls that I have ever recieved. One of my clients called this morning to say she is trapped under her MacPro tower and she needed me to come asap to help her out. I asked “where are you?” and she said “at home not at the studio”. She screamed “just get here!”. So I rushed over there, punched in the key code to get through the gate and entered her house calling out her name. I found her laying flat on her back on the staircase with the MacPro crushing her chest. I ran up there to pull the tower off her and I couldn’t help but to laugh. You see she is this small 4 foot 6 inches middle aged tiny lady. She just didn’t have the strenght to push the tower off. She had this idea to move the tower upstairs but because the tower was so heavy for her, she thought she could pull the tower while laying flat on her back over her body. Crawling the machine slowly up the stairs. It didn’t work. Helped her move the tower upstairs but the tower ended back down stairs anyway. It was just too funny.

So there you have it. Pro tip: Don’t move heavy machines around by putting them on your body and crawling across the floor.