GarageBand for Mac OS X is a full recording studio for your Mac. It allows musicians to connect microphones, guitars, basses, and other instruments for a fully analog recording session. It has MIDI playback and recording capabilities as well, allowing anyone with a MIDI capable keyboard to record right along with those instruments.

One of the less-touted features, however, is the Loops section. GarageBand comes with pre-recorded MIDI and sampled audio that fit together in various ways. Without knowing to play a single instrument, you can create amazing sounding music with GarageBand, simply using Loops.

Following the start of EA’s iOS sale yesterday, which has seen popular titles like FIFA 12, Dead Space, and Need for Speed reduced to just $0.99, other iOS developers are now throwing their hats into the ring. We got a list of titles from Sega, Capcom, Warner Bros. and more that are now on sale for July 4. Come and get ’em while they’re cheap.

Following yesterday’s report from Bloomberg that revealed Apple plans to release the long-awaited iPad mini this September, a new report from The Wall Street Journal has this morning added even further credence to those claims.

According to “people familiar with the matter,” Apple’s suppliers are preparing for mass production of a new iPad with a display smaller than 8 inches, which is expected to begin in September.

“The Mac is still growing, and I think it could still grow, but I strongly believe that the tablet market will surpass the unit sales of the PC market.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that at a Goldman Sachs conference several months ago. Cook has been one the industry’s most vocal proponent of tablets as the future of modern computing, and recent statistics support his argument. According to new data, traditional notebook computers will take a backseat to tablets in four years. By 2016, tablet shipments are estimated to surpass notebook shipments.

Apple has traditionally been opposed to putting a touchscreen on any of its products, leaving touch capabilities to only iOS powered devices. This hasn’t stopped the third party market though, as you can now buy an accessory that supposedly turns your iMac into a full, touch enabled computer.

The brand-spanking new Google Nexus 7 is arguably the biggest non-Apple tablet announcement since Amazon debuted the Kindle Fire. With a starting price of $200, the Nexus 7 isn’t really intended to be an iPad killer, although Google wouldn’t mind cutting out a piece of Apple’s pie.

The guys at iFixit recently tore down the Google Nexus 7, and their findings revealed that a one millimeter difference in thickness makes Google’s tablet infinitely more repairable than Apple’s iPad.

With GarageBand for the iPad, Apple has brought an inexpensive, very powerful music recording studio right to your favorite mobile device. This fantastic $5 app lets anyone with an iPad create, record and enjoy making music, even if they have little experience with recording software or musical instruments.

With a killer beat in place, it’s time to add the second (mostly unsung) hero of modern music: the bass. Whether your tastes run to big, fat and bottom-heavy or quick, snappy and distorted, GarageBand has you covered. With GarageBand for iPad, you can create bass tracks that sound incredibly good with very little knowledge or expertise.

Let’s take a look at the simplest way to do that: Smart Bass.

You iPhone’s headphone jack is just fine for listening to your MP3s with the crappy Apple-supplied earbuds, but what if you want something a little, shall we say, less terrible? You could of course spring for a high-end headphone amp with its own DAC (Digital Analog Converter), and pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege. Or you could dig $11 out from under the couch cushions and buy CableJive’s LineOut Pro.

Until Tim Cook climbs onto the roof of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters and shouts, “we will never build an iPad mini” at the top of his voice, the rumors will continue to circulate. The latest comes from “various analysts” who claim the upcoming iPad mini will feature a 7.85-inch IGZO display from Sharp, and will start at just $249.

Based on its less than reliable track record, we always take DigiTimes reports with a hefty helping of salt. We wouldn’t advise you to read too much into this one, then, but it’ll certainly be interesting to those of you who are awaiting the new iMac refresh.

According to sources in Apple’s “upstream supply chain,” the Cupertino company’s new all-in-one desktop will enter production this month, ready for its debut “possibly around October.” Despite recent reports, the sources also claim that there is a “high chance” the machine will follow the new MacBook Pro and ship with a high-resolution Retina display.