We’ve reported a number of times about how Apple’s Find my iPad (or iPhone) feature has helped retrieve multiple lost or stolen iDevices. This week reader Jacob Dayan from Israel wrote to tell us his own successful, and moderately harrowing, story about getting his iPad back when he returned to his car to find his window smashed and a bag of items missing. From his blog:

“When I call my wife to tell her the bad news, it hits me. I can find my iPad! I ask my daughter Vered to log in to my MobileMe accounts, and within few minutes I hear the good news – the blue dot is active, my iPad is on the map! I start the chase, and Vered instructs me from remote. “Turn left … they are heading to the other cemetery… they are now approaching Rt 40..”.

Dayan follows the thief for 10 miles, until his daughter reports that the iPad is inside an apartment building.

A friend and I were talking today about the iPad 2, the Smart Cover, and the 31 magnets they contain today. We were pondering what would happen when we tossed the iPad 2 with an attached Smart Cover into our laptop bags right next to a MacBook with a standard hard drive inside. A co-worker of my friend had brought this up earlier leading us to the question, “Can the iPad 2 and Smart Cover magnets damage (or erase) our MacBook Hard Drive? ”

The clear answer is — No! The myth about magnets erasing data from hard disks or computers is mostly false and a hard one to shake since many of us were trained to keep the two apart. Let me explain why the myth isn’t exactly true.

Every time a new iOS device gets a camera, it seems like there’s some first with it: the first movie or music video or television show or bang bus episode. Here’s a new first: a Minneapolis man is the first to use his iPad 2 to report breaking news. Even more interesting is the man in question is Robert Stephens, who co-founded the Geek Squad, which is now owned by Best Buy.

Here’s what happened. Driving to work one day, Stephens saw a fireball erupt in the distance. He quickly whipped out his iPhone, and started recording the explosion while driving “to see if anyone had dialed 911 yet.”

Once Stephens got to the scene, he pulled into a nearby parking lot, transferred the footage from his iPhone 4 to his iPad 2 using Apple’s USB Camera Connection Kit, edited the footage with iMovie, added a map, subtitled it and added a voice over and uploaded the film to YouTube. Before long, his coverage was being used by CNN and MSNBC.

Pretty impressive. Just think of how quickly a seasoned journalist could have turned a report around with the iPad 2. Thanks to companies like Apple, we’re not living in an era of citizen journalism where a good story breaks in just minutes, not hours or days.

[via TUAW]

An online petition to pull an app from iTunes targeted at “homosexual strugglers” has reached 20,000 signatures.

Apple has not commented publicly on whether it intends to pull the free app from Christian group Exodus International and did not return Cult of Mac’s request for comment.

Last November, Apple removed an app called the Manhattan Declaration from the iTunes store after outcry and over  7,000 signatures on an online poll that the content was an anti-gay and hate-mongering. The app makers asked to have it re-instated to no avail.

The group behind the latest petition, Truth Wins Out, has also asked Apple to intervene but received no response. Signers of the petition more than tripled since our last post on the Exodus app.

They issued the following statement: “If Apple continues to bury its head in the sand, we will hold a press conference in front of their offices featuring sexual and spiritual abuse victims of “ex-gay” programs.”

We’ll keep you posted.

We close out another week and just days before the start of spring with three hardware deals in the spotlight. First up is a number of iMac desktop machines from the Apple Store. These i3 and i5 Core-based machines start at $1,019 for a 3.06GHz model. Next is a MacBook Pro, running a Core i5 at 2.3GHz for just $1,129. We wrap up the featured deals with an 8GB iPod nano (5th-gen) for only $99.

Along the way, we take a look at various cases and assorted accessories for your favorite Apple devices. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Back in 2000, when Google was just getting started, its venture capital backers insisted the fledling company find an experieced CEO to provide ‘adult supervision.’

Venture capitalist John Doerr arranged for Google’s young co-founders to meet with half-a-dozen Silicon Valley CEOs in an attempt to get the process started. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met with Intel’s Andy Grove, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and several others.

At the end of the tour, they were ready to hire a CEO but there was a problem, according to Wired senior writer Steven Levy:

… they would only consider one person: Steve Jobs.

Jobs was busy running Apple, of course, which was just about to introduce the first iPod, the product that would transform the company. Doerr persuaded them to widen their net and introduced them to Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Novell. Schmidt became Google’s CEO in 2001.

The nugget about Steve Jobs is from the latest Wired magazine, in a story about Larry Page retaking the reins as Google’s CEO. It is not yet online. The story is an excerpt from Levy’s upcoming book, “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” which is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Since Apple introduced iOS 4.3 last week, I’ve found a number of complaints about battery issues with the firmware update. I’ve even experienced these problems personally and I know many of you have too.

The update has caused issues with the battery life on my iPhone 4 and my iPad 2 is getting considerably less time out of its battery than my old iPad running iOS 4.2.1, so if you haven’t upgraded to iOS 4.3 you may want to wait until this issue is resolved.

According to users on Apple Discussions under the topics iPhone 4 – ios 4.3 – Battery Drain and iOS 4.3 causing battery drain, the iPhone’s battery life is severely shortened by the latest iOS update. As a result some users are also complaining that battery life is lasting 2 to 4 hours less than before the update was applied.

Game guru Peter Molyneux has launched a £1000 reward for the return of his stolen iPad.

Molyneux, the mind behind Dungeon Keeper, Populous and Black & White, got his iPad and passport nicked from his car in parked in Stamford Brook Road London.

He posted a shout-out to his 20,000 followers on Twitter in the hopes of getting it back.

Peter, peter, peter: never leave iDevices in the car.

And yeah, the Find My iPhone app is also a good way to get back stolen stuff.

While much of the world’s focus is on the fate of Japan’s nuclear reactors, for the tech industry concern is also on the potential fall-out from temporary shutdowns of vital chipmaking plants. With the country a major supplier of silicon chips, the uncertainty may prompt ‘panic buying’ of semiconductors, a situation from which Apple may be uniquely immune.

“Many electronic original equipment manufacturers worldwide could be engaging in panic buying of semiconductors and electronic components,” hardware researcher IHS iSuppli announced Thursday. Several distributors report “a surge in orders” from customers fearing Japan’s 9.0 earthquake could disrupt supplies for everything from personal computers to tablets.

Rather than have all of his iOS devices strewn around his desk higgledy-piggledy, Andrew Kim designed the Polyply, a simply piece of kit that keeps his Apple gadgets as tidily arrayed as the interlocked tetronimos in a game of Tetris.

It’s not a real product, and we’re not sure it needs to be, since it’s the sort of thing that could easily be put together with some plywood and strategically carved acrylic fronting. You could make this easily yourself in a configuration personalized to your own iOS device set-up.

We love it, from the way it doubles as an iPad keyboard dock to the careful notches allowing the charging cables to slither through. Well done, Mr. Kim!