Apple’s iPhone now comprises 2.2 percent of cell phones sold in Taiwan, reports said Wednesday. More than 12,000 of 546,000 phones sold in December were iPhones.

The December sales put the iPhone in sixth place among handsets sold on the Asian island nation, according to a report in Digitimes.

Although its unclear what impact the iPhone’s appearance had on rivals, a number of handset makers saw losses in market share last month.

Developed by two anesthesiologists, this iPhone app helps log cases, keeping track of who has gone under for what in the operating room.

Some functions include:

— Record a new anesthesia case log on the fly, even if you don’t have a wireless connection (your iPhone will sync data to the CaseLogs server once it regains connectivity).

—  Browse  Case Log History to quickly find a patient record and open the entry for easy editing (your anesthesia records are organized chronologically).

Launched a couple of months ago, iAnesthesia:Case Logs reviews are generally favorable, it seems that the app (view demo here) helps get rid of manual methods like collecting stickers to log patient procedures but has been criticized for omitting a field for patient names over privacy concerns.

Costs $19.99, available on iTunes.

Via Med Gadget

Cradle your iPhone in this artisan-carved iPhone stand made to look like a hand.

Made by a Tulsa-based carver, the oak stand holds your iPhone or iPhone 3g in its palm and then slides out vertically when you need it.

Not for everyone — especially with a $95 price tag — it would go nicely with your wood-look iPod case or wooden MacBook Case.

Via Geek Sugar

The next version of Google’s Android-based cell phone sold by T-Mobile opts to drop the keyboard in favor of a virtual version to better chase after iPhone fans, a report suggested Wednesday.

The G2, built by Taiwan’s HTC for U.S. carrier T-Mobile, will appear this Spring without a physical keyboard, according to gadget blog Gizmodo. Removing the keyboard in favor of a touch-screen version will better align the Android phone with handsets such as Apple’s iPhone.

The new phone, alleged pictures of which Gizmodo published, provides a “slimmer, rounded design,” wrote Macnn.

I really enjoy doing design work, but the weighty programs I’m using to do it make fighting the risk of losing my work a major battle. My latest project is laying out my resume on a grid to squeeze three pages of text into one. With all that fiddling, and switching back and forth between applications as I try to multitask, the software I’m using is prone to crashes. It was ugly, but thanks to years of practice back in the day, I managed to avoid a few serious issues thanks to a regimen of Command-S kung-fu training.

Then I found out about EverSave. EverSave is another quiet little freeware menu bar item you don’t know how you lived without. It’s got two key settings: time increment saving and application switch saving.

Time increment saving is pretty self explanatory, and I’m a little hesitant to use it for fear of losing my Command-S embouchure. Application switching saving just saves your current work every time you switch to another application. It’s a great time to save, since processing-intense programs seem likely to crash when you switch back to them, and it doesn’t interrupt your work flow.

EverSave also lets you choose which applications you want to automatically save, so you can keep it from accidentally pushing out new web code or overwriting your programs with new errors. You can also turn EverSave on and off through the menubar or through a customizable hotkey.

Apple’s white plastic MacBook now has the same graphics horsepower of more expensive aluminum MacBooks, reports said Wednesday.

The upgrade, made without any official fanfare, provides buyers of the low-end notebook NVIDIA’s 9400 graphics engine, the same system already available to owners of pricier aluminum MacBooks.

Cupertino also added some oomph to the white plastic notebook’s main processor, upgrading the MacBook to a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and doubling memory to 2GB.

However, the white plastic MacBook’s beefier DD2 memory has a clock speed of 667 MHz rather than the speedier 1.06MHz available with DD3 memory for aluminum MacBooks.

Likewise, Apple still limits white plastic MacBooks to a 20-inch Cinema Display upgrade and retains a Mini DVI graphics output rather than a Mini DisplayPort.

In October, Apple lowered the price of its entry-level white plastic MacBook to $999 from $1,099.

Remember the Talking Moose?

If you don’t, this post will make no sense to you whatsoever.

But if you DO: Hey! Woo! Yay! Talking Moose is back as a Twitter superstar and can provide just as much entertainment from there as it used to back in the day. Probably more.

I had the Moose running on my Lime Green iMac. Annoying as hell. But fabulous none the less.

(You can still get the Moose for OS X, did you know that? Not that you need to now. Twitter! Superstar! Twitter is the new Hotmail, did you hear? Or was it the new Geocities? I forget. Us old timers do that. Often.)

(Via TidBITS.)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing whether Apple sufficiently informed investors of CEO Steve Jobs’ health status, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

An unnamed source told the news organization the review does not mean Apple committed any wrongdoing, according to the report.

Last week, Apple announced Jobs was taking a six-month medical leave of absence after being informed his health troubles were “more complex” the previously announced. Prior to the announcement, Jobs had assured the Mac community an ailment that had prompted speculation was due to a “hormonal imbalance” the Apple co-founder described as “easily treatable.”

I was going to save this one for a “WTF iPhone Apps Of The Week” post, but then I thought – No. This is Too Good. This needs a space of its own.

Ladies and gentlemen (but mostly, I suspect, gentlemen): I present iPropose. It is an app designed to help the tongue-tied ask for someone else’s hand in marriage.

I think the official blurb from the App Store says everything:

“Make sure the most important event of your lives happens inside your life’s most important gadget. And with iPropose, that special someone will know you really care. iPropose is 100% guaranteed to result with a “YES” or your money back!”

Stop and think, ladies (because I suspect it will be mostly ladies): do you really want to marry a guy who proposed to you on a phone? Do you?

Have you ever designed and ordered a book using Apple’s iPhoto book publishing tool? I have, and they are nice. The quality is quite good and the pricing seems fair value – they make great commemorative gifts and keepsakes. But Apple’s not really in the publishing business. Through iPhoto your options are somewhat limited and somewhat photo-centric, all of which is as it should be.

But say you’ve got a publishing idea that doesn’t fit one of Apple’s iPhoto templates and, well, gosh darn it, also doesn’t seem to be getting much interest from any of the few publishers remaining in the business of making and distributing books. There’s always the so-called “vanity press” – but what if you could just design it and print it on your own?

Well, you can. With free software from Blurb you can write, design and print your own books and sell them online. Books can be up to 440 pages long and come in a variety of sizes in both hardback and softcover, at prices that make you wonder why it’s so hard to make money in the publishing business.

Blurb’s BookSmart software for Mac (cross-platform compatible with Windows) features a ton of professionally designed layouts or lets you create from scratch, integrates seamlessly with iPhoto, lets you import from online sources such as Flickr and Picasa, and supports all of your own fonts in a variety of sizes and text styles.

When you’re done creating, you can sell your masterpiece online in the Blurb Bookstore and keep 100% of the markup.

Blurb may not save the publishing industry the way iTunes saved the music industry, but it’s nice to know you can be a Paperback Writer for just $4.95.

Handicappers currently make the new Palm Pre the most worthy contender for iPhone’s title as The Coolest Handset, so it’s no surprise there’s an “I’m a Mac” style advertising spoof pitting the two devices against one another. Here’s an installment based on Pre’s “wireless” charging capabilities.

The fun just never ends with Apple products and those who’d be like them.

Via blinkx

Wall Street greeted Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the US by shedding more than 5% of its total value Tuesday. Some might interpret the market action as a vote of no confidence in the new administration, others likely view the dip as an indication of challenges ahead for the US economy and still others would say the market for stocks acts as any market with excess inventory on hand – by putting things on sale.

The sale price for shares of Apple (AAPL) closed Tuesday at $78.20, the cheapest price the stock has seen in over two years, more than 60% off its all-time high of $200, set in December 2007. One of the most widely followed Apple analysts, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray affirmed a price target of $235 for Apple stock as recently as December and today’s price action, coming just one trading session prior to the company’s quarterly earnings announcement, would seem to be Wall Street’s equivalent of a one-day red tag sale.

So what do you think? Is Wall Street giving potential Apple shareholders a gift, or is it trying to unload damaged goods while it still can? Can a guy like Munster, who follows in minute detail every financial move the company makes, who reports, often with uncanny precision, what Apple’s revenue and profit numbers will look like before they are announced to the public, can he seriously set a price target 200% above the stock’s current value?

What I know is that a year ago, after the market had knocked AAPL down from $200 to about $140, I wished I had some money to put into the stock, because I loved the company and its products, and I thought its prospects for the future were great. I know that six months ago, when the iPhone 3G came out and the AppStore launched with the stock trading at $175, I wished I had some money to put into the stock for the very same reasons.

Today, I know I’m kind of glad I don’t have any money to put into the stock because I still love the company and its products, and I still believe its prospects for the future are great, but it seems sometimes that’s not enough to make money in the stock market.

I thought maybe I’d seen it all when I saw Hasbro’s I-Dog, the plastic, music lovin’ mutt “trained” to obey eight commands, including “Dance!”, “Stay!”, and “Tap paw!” – virtual non-stop entertainment for the pre-tween set with iPods.

But then they went and turned the iDog into a soft, snuggly, squeezable version of the portable kids’ MP3 speaker, complete with LED lights on the pup’s “face” that show its various “moods.”

And now, the giant toymaker comes back to the kids-with-iPods well, bearing I-Turtle, a groovin’ little speaker-toy that can tap its foot along to the music, bob its head and raise its shell with synchronized lights that flash to the rhythm. But this little gem of an ePet doesn’t just play your kid’s music, it’s got its own musical riffs, “tons of blinking light patterns”, a built-in whine for more attention, and a piercing scream it’ll let out when little Susie flicks its tail.

It’s almost as if Hasbro designers took a meeting and said, “we’ll teach ’em to give iPods to 8 year-olds…”

Via SlipperyBrick

Ahead of Wednesday’s report for the first quarter of fiscal 2009, a prominent Apple analyst projects Mac sales rose between six percent and 10 percent in December.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told investors Monday Apple likely sold 2.45 million to 2.55 million Macs during the quarter, recovering from November when Mac sales suffered a double-digit decline.

Using consumer sales data from research firm NPD, Munster said Mac sales in December rose 4 percent, a jump over -1 year-over-year growth reported for November.

As analysts attempt to predict Wednesday’s first quarter revenue report from Apple, one expert trimmed his expectation for both the December quarter and full fiscal year.

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi told clients Monday he predicts Apple will report $9.3 billion for the December quarter, off slightly from the $9.76 billion Wall Street consensus.

He said data “may not be encouraging, given the lack of new products at MacWorld and Apple’s refusal to cut prices” along with CEO Steve Jobs’ recent health status downgrade.

Here’s a gander at actress Celina Jaitley posing with an strategically-placed iPod  on the cover of this month’s India edition of “Stuff.”

The former Miss India has appeared in about 18 Bollywood productions and has a forthcoming flick called “Showman” where she plays a half-Indian half English pole dancer.

Via One India

This wouldn’t be the most practical way to display your CDs, but it might appeal to some Apple  enthusiasts. Chinese designer Li Jianye took inspiration from Apple’s Cover Flow function for browsing music, more views on his blog.

Via Geeky Gadgets

China’s Apple fans can now order refurbished iPods and iMacs for discounts up to 22 percent retail, the Cupertino, Calif. company announced Tuesday.

An iPod shuffle returned and inspected by Apple sells in China for $44, according to Reuters.

The move echos similar refurbished Macs Apple sells in the U.S. and elsewhere. Best Buy began selling returned iPhones for a $50 discount.

Apple refused to say how many refurbished products have been sold to China.

Right, what have we got this week? First there’s Listen. Maybe the name iShell was already taken. So what does it do? You pick a shell and hold it up to your ear, then “close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax. You’ll feel the weight of the world lift off your shoulders.”

I have a confession to make: despite my worldly exterior, I am a gigantic comics geek. I have a pull list, I can name everyone who has ever been a member of the Justice League, and I had a letter published in Green Arrow #101.

At this point in my life, I finally have the budget to buy a decent number of comics, but this has actually made things much more complex. After all, now I don’t have time to memorize which new books I want to read. Unless a preview makes a real impression on me, I forget I ever wanted to read it.

Thankfully, as it does for most of life’s problems, the iPhone has an answer. It’s called Comixology, and it’s a beautiful thing. Basically an app version (and companion) of Comixology.com, the program allows you to view lists of all the comics being released in a given week, preview artwork and story pages for many of them, and then “pull” interesting books so your local retailer will have everything cool waiting for you the next time you stop by.

It can also bring in podcasts, news, columns, and reviews. It’s pretty much one-stop nerd shopping.

I haven’t had time to get this synced to my actual comics pull list yet, but I’m planning to soon (my local comics impresario is an adviser to the project), and it’s awesome just as a memory-enhancing tool in the first place.

Plus, it doesn’t make farting noises. That alone sets it apart from the App Store pack.

Apple approved Ustream’s AppStore live video streaming app on iTunes Monday evening, just in time for what is likely to be the most photographed, videoed and broadcast US Presidential Inauguration ever, on Tuesday in Washington, DC.

Get Ustream’s free app on your iPhone, and if you can find yourself an open WiFi connection between 10am and 3pm (EST) Tuesday, you’ll be able to catch live footage of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the US.

Ustream’s TV-in only breakthrough may seem small potatoes to legions of iPhone jailbreakers, who’ll be able to use iPhone’s TV-out capabilities to broadcast Obama’s historic inauguration from their iPhones; it’s also quite something for mainstream iPhone users to now be able to receive live video on their mobile devices.

It figures, then, with up to 5 million people in Washington DC for Tuesday’s pomp and circumstance, a few jailbroken live feeds ought to be accessible to those who know the right people.

Sound Clip is such a thoughtful design solution to limitations that make iPhone’s speakers almost suck, it’s a wonder they didn’t think of it first in Cupertino.

A conical deflection chamber that reflects volume towards the user instead of away, the device is said to amplify sound by 10dB between the 5kHz and 20kHz frequencies. The SoundClip fits in the iPhone’s 30-pin dock, and also helps prevent users from blocking the iPhone speaker with their hand when playing a game.

For $8 and a barely perceptible modification to the iPhone’s svelte form, you can improve its sound appreciably.

Via MacNN

Now then, lovely Cultists. We need your help.

You may have heard that this coming Saturday, January 24th, is a special day in the hearts of Mac aficionados. It will mark the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer, the machine that turned Apple into a global brand and kick-started the line of computers that has ended up as today’s line up of Pro, Mini and MacBook.

And what we’d like to do to celebrate the Mac’s birthday is find someone who is still using one.

Is that you? Do you have an original Mac that still boots up? Do you still actually use it for anything?

If you have, or if you do, let us know.

We will EITHER: send a media squad to your home to interview you. Top photographers will take pictures of you and your original Mac for use in magazines like Vogue, Playboy, Country Living, Knitting Monthly and possibly even Wired. A real time satellite link will be set up between your home and the White House so that Barack Obama himself can send congratulations and ask you questions about that 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor. We will also send you a pony.

OR: We might write a post about you.

So, like we said: got a (working) original Mac? We want to know.

(CC licensed pic by ballistikcoffeeboy.)

Look, it’s about time we confessed something: writing all this gubbins about computers is hard work. Bloggers need breaks.

Especially all the Jobs rumor-mongers who have been working FLAT OUT for the last few weeks, typing up the first thing that pops into their heads in order for readers (and the mainstream media, let’s not forget them!) to have something to talk about.

Now Steve’s gone for some well-deserved rest and the wind has been knocked out of the bloggers’ sails somewhat. We need change.

No, not Presidential change. Something simpler. Something to automate this whole business of writing anything-we-damn-well-please about Steve Jobs, his health, and how the World Might End if he isn’t in charge of Apple any more.

So we turn to our friends at MacJournals with heartfelt thanks, because they have knocked up a quick Steve Jobs story template that any journalist or blogger can use to save time from now on.