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We’ve lamented the iPhone’s unsuitability to be used as a weapon before. An iPhone wielded in the sock makes a satisfying nunchuku, don’t get us wrong, but in the viscera-choked inferno of the modern battlefield, you’re just never going to be able to close the projectile-perforated distance between you and your enemy enough to give him a really meaty thwack upside the head with one.

But while the iPhone’s physical design has inferior potential to cause mutilative harm to your fellow man, the App Store presents marvelous opportunities for the art of warfare. At least, that’s what U.S. military contractor Raytheon thinks, having just announced a range of military-oriented apps for the iPhone that will help soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan use their handsets for war.

It’s that time of year again folks.

Last December, we asked you to nominate your favorite new desktop apps of 2008. Popular choices back then included Evernote, Dropbox, 1Password and Things.

But what new stuff has grabbed your attention during 2009?

Lou Reed’s a strange one, but then again, you’d pretty much expect him to be: as a teenager, the Velvet Underground founder was institutionalized by his parents and underwent a course of electro-convulsive treatment in order to cure his “homosexual feelings”… a traumatic event that I’ve always felt directly inspired Reed’s 1975 double album of recorded audio feedback, Metal Machine Music, which certainly sounded like brain synapses wildly misfiring. Reed’s latest accomplishment? A surprising foray into iPhone App development called Lou Zoom, which may be just as much of a waste of money as Metal Machine Music ever was.

As you can see, Lou Zoom basically just strips down your contact list to its barest essentials and explodes the text with a large point Helvetica Neue font, although it does include some improved search functionality as well. Frankly, it’s not much of an app: it looks pretty terrible, and only seems like it might be even marginally useful to the visually impaired. Still, Lou Reed “designed” it, so you can expect to pay $2.50 for it.

Lou, you know I love you.You are one of the greatest guitar players of the 20th century. You have single-handedly changed the course of rock and/or roll. But you can’t be all things to all men. It’s okay if you’re just a rock god: you don’t need to be an iPhone app developer too.

[via Daring Fireball]

This was supposed to be my Nook review. I ordered two way back in early November. I was supposed to be telling you all about the Nook’s awesome-touchiness, fast page turning, loaning books to friends and even giving a short primer on how you can check out books from your local library and read them on your Nook, something Amazon’s Kindle could never do with its proprietary formats.

But I’m not, because it ain’t here.

It isn’t here, despite being assured it would arrive by Dec 12th, then reassured it would get here by the 18th–and then further assured when it didn’t ship Monday, that BN.com was gonna ship it super-expedited-over-night-air to make it on time.

It isn’t here and it isn’t gonna be on Friday.

Of course they did ship yesterday, if you call strapping it to the back of a turtle and pointing him in the direction of my house shipping it.

I am assured by BN customer service it will get here Monday, just one business day after their revised, revised again, and yes we really mean it this time, promised date –unfortunately that will be one day too long; since me and my little ones will be heading off to Grandmas house Sunday.

Barnes & Noble, you totally Grinched my Christmas, and I wrote this just for you:

(sung to Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie”)

It came into this world as a prospect
Look into its screen
You can see the covers of your books
Loan ‘em to your friends
Read ‘em in the store
Every page you turn makes you want it even more

But Hey I think about the day
Barnes & Noble ran away with my pay
When it came delivery day
Now it’s stuck in transit in that truck
And I’m just a sucker with a lump of coal

Hey, like a chump… Hey, like a chump… Hey, like a chump

[Chorus]
I did it all for the Nookie
C’mon
The Nookie
C’mon
So you can take that bookie
And stick it up your, yeah!!
Stick it up your, yeah!!
Stick it up your, yeah!!

Why did it take so long?
Why did I wait so long, huh?
To ship it out? but you didn’t
And I’m not the only one underneath the sun who didn’t get it

Hands up who loves the Muppets and I’ll count, starting with me.

Disney’s just released an “Animal Drummer”, a rhythm game for people who enjoy Animal’s unique (and somewhat insane) drumming style.

We’ve all been gleefully following the seventeen month legal battle between Apple and Mac clone maker Psystar, but it looks likes the credits are finally about to roll. Yesterday, United States District Judge William Alsup granted a permanent injunction to Apple that will prevent Psystar from ever again selling hardware with Apple’s operating system already installed.

AT&T is threatening to terminate the accounts of a pair of iPhone users because they’re costing the company too much money.

“AT&T is firing us as iPhone users,” says Penny Alexander, who lives in Dadeville, Alabama, with her husband John.

In late November the Alexanders received a letter from AT&T saying that because they didn’t live in an area directly serviced by AT&T’s network, more than half their calls were being routed through another company’s network. Thanks to roaming charges, the pair are costing AT&T too much money.

“This situation is rare,” the letter said, “but when it happens, our operating costs increase significantly which makes it difficult for us to keep our rates affordable for all other customers.”

So Apple has allowed into the Store a third-party video recording application for plain old 2G and 3G iPhones; but honestly, don’t get your hopes up too high.

iVideoCamera by Laan Labs suffers some serious limitations: it only records three frames a second, it can only record for a minute at most, and resolution is just 160×213. It’s little more than a series of stills stitched together into something vaguely resembling moving pictures.

Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs is a finalist for Time Magazine‘s Person of the Year. Jobs, who returned to lead Apple after a liver transplant, is in third place, just two votes behind U.S. President Barack Obama (2008 Person of the Year) and trails Iran protesters.

If he won, the title would follow Jobs’ win in November as Fortune‘s CEO of the Decade. Jobs is the single business person on the annual list for Time’s year-end cover.

Apple’s long and tortuous travail trying to solve its 27-inch iMac production woes doesn’t look likely to end before the New Years, according to reports from authorized resellers who say that Apple has delayed shipping their premium all-in-ones for at least two weeks until they can figure out the cause of the 27-incher’s common graphic woes.

UK newspaper The Guardian this morning launched its iPhone app.

And wow, it’s pretty damn good.

Everyone knows that the one thing holding the iPhone back in the U.S. is AT&T’s poor 3G coverage, right? With a dropped signal, it can transform from one of the world’s most capable mobile computers to a video iPod that plays a pretty mean version of Doom. Everyone knows the problem lies with the network’s inability to handle iPhone data traffic, as iPhones have no such problems in the European market, Japan, and other regions where it has a major foothold — places where the network load is so much not a problem that they enable data tethering from laptops.

Well, everyone knows but the New York Times and the mobile industry analysts — some of whom work for AT&T — they interviewed about the matter. In a dreadful column titled “AT&T Takes the Blame, Even for iPhone’s Faults“, one of the paper’s correspondents in Silicon Valley, Randall Stross, goes so far as to definitively declare that the iPhone’s design “is contributing to performance problems” and that with regard to Verizon, “AT&T has the superior network nationwide.” Oh, for crying out loud.

After our recent post about Apple computers held hostage as they were sent to the FDA with documentation as if they were fruit, Susan Rosenberg, a public relations manager at UPS, cleared up the mystery in an email statement to Cult of Mac:

“Apple products are not being associated with fruit for import documentation or clearance. It’s coincidental that UPS groups the FDA and Dept. of Agriculture in the same tracking message as UPS provides detailed real-time visibility of events through our process.

The FDA does have import documentation requirements for low-level radiation-emitting devices with lasers such as CD-Roms or DVD components that are part of most any computer.”

Rosenberg points us to the Food and Drug Administration page about Radiation Emitting Products, where one is reminded that sending electronic products —  including those cell phones, ultrasound diathermy devices or microwave blood warmers you were going to pop in the post — will be inspected.  (Kudos to CoM readers who commented on the previous post that this was the real cause).

So, what are the delays about, then?

Despite the fact that the iPod Touch is increasingly being branded as a gamer’s device, Apple’s never had much truck with gaming… at least in-house. But new calls for a video game artist for the iPhone Gaming Group imply that Apple might be preparing to make a serious push into the gaming market, perhaps to better compete with other handhelds like the Nintendo DS.

Google Chrome for Mac arrived yesterday in beta form. The browser is lacking important features, including bookmarks and cookie management, and the useful app mode available in the Windows version. Also, benchmarks show it’s marginally slower than Safari. But in use I’ve found it good enough to set as my default, and Chrome’s superior to Apple’s browser in important ways: it launches more quickly, and is far less taxing on my Mac regarding RAM and processor usage, even with many tabs open.

However, one thing I’m finding irritating is Chrome’s tabs. Google’s efforts elsewhere in making Chrome a Mac-like experience should be applauded—the browser supports Keychain and the Mac OS X dictionary, and there are subtle animations peppered about—but the main toolbar and tabs area is problematic. I spent a short while making a mock-up (see the full-size version on my Flickr page), which offers ideas for a more Mac-like Chrome interface.

Meet the iVictrola, the weirdest and possibly the coolest iPhone dock you’re likely to see this Christmastime.

Or should I say not likely to see, as it appears that the limited stock at Design Within Reach has already sold out. Oh well.

As Christmas approaches, you might be thinking of buying a pocket sized video recorder for your loved one. But which one should you get? A Flip? An iPod Nano?

How about none of the above? When I asked my Twitter followers the same question, they were unanimous: “Get a Kodak Zi8“, they said.

So what’s so good about it?

Cult of Mac reader Tiago Piccini from Brazil wrote in with yet another idea — following our posts on cat beds and hackintosh holders —  for recycling the shell of a dear, departed iMac.

He spent under an hour gutting his non-working iMac, then adding a lamp socket and switch device, powering it with a 40w bulb and adding a piece of fabric under the screen to soften the light.

Piccini, who by day works at an Apple Solution Expert, calls his creation the iAbat-jour…It’s an easy DIY project that gives off a nice glow, no?

The festive season is so close you can almost taste it. The kids are pestering to put up Christmas decorations; so why not give them something fun to do this year?

SymmetriSketch is a great free vector drawing application (also available for Windows and Linux users) that lets you play around with symmetry across a 2D plane.

We know that some of you are still sporting a dot matrix printer in your office.  Sometimes its rattle and hum almost puts you to sleep.  But for those of you that want to forge ahead to the 21st century, we have a great giveaway for you on Twitter.

The Giveaway: 1 Epson Artisan 710 printer with a retail value of $179.99.  If you need some convincing that this printer is worthy of your printing projects, check out Eli’s review of this printer here.

How To Enter:

1. Follow us on Twitter.  Why?  Because we said so, that’s why.
2. Tweet this:  “Follow these Mac techies: @cultofmac and get exclusive content, promotions, and giveaways #cultofmac” (you don’t need to include the quotation marks)
3. Remember to include the hash tag #cultofmac because that’s how we’ll track who enters the giveaway.
4. You’ll have 24 hours to enter the giveaway, and it’s 12pm EST. right now, so no more entries will be accepted after 12pm EST. on Wednesday, December 2nd. We will announce the winner on Twitter the following day.

Cyber Monday has come and gone, but it’s Giveaway Tuesday at the Cult of Mac.  Ready, Set…GO GO GO!

Batches of stolen iPhones snagged during the “Great iPhone Heist” in Belgium earlier this month are showing up on the Russian black market.

Two weeks ago, thieves made off with 3,000-4,000 iPhone 3GS from a Belgian warehouse belonging to wireless carrier Mobistar. The haul was valued at $3 million. Now the stolen iPhones are being offered to cell-phone vendors in Russia.

The 21-year-old Australian guy who got chewed out by his parents for launching the first iPhone worm landed a job with an app company.

Ashley Towns wrote Ikee, calling it an “experiment that got out of hand,”  a worm that  switched iPhone wallpaper for an image of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” who morphed into the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch worm replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.

The day after the worm infected jailbroken iPhones, Towns said he had received a death threat, media attention and job offers.

The BBC reports now that Towns signed on with mogeneration, an Australian app company with four apps currently available at iTunes, two are kid distractors and two are restaurant finders.

The worm Towns created wasn’t but opened the door for a nasty worm targeting online banking customers of ING.

“It leaves a nasty taste that he has been rewarded like this, yet has not even expressed regret for his actions,” Graham Cluley of Security firm Sophos told BBC News.
Towns said he created the virus to raise the issue of security. He did not face any criminal charges.

Never let it be said that Apple doesn’t keep its promises. Six weeks after announcing it would open up its iTunes LP file format to all developers and labels, Apple delivered this morning with specifications and resources for both iTLP and its DVD-like iTunes Extras. All of the contents are here. The company also through in the TuneKit framework, a set of resources for delivering superior multimedia experiences through iTunes.

Apple also reiterated its support for making iTunes LP and Extras the format of choice for the store, just not quite yet. According to its development site, all approvals for both features will be handled manually until the first quarter of 2010, at which point submissions will be handled like all other iTunes uploads.

I’m thrilled to see it. Digital media has so much more potential than just the content by itself. These are a clear step into a brighter future. Well done, Apple.

Via TUAW.

Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington has written a nice essay giving thanks this Thanksgiving — to Steve Jobs.

Arrington rightly points out that our world would be very different if Jobs hadn’t returned to Apple 12 years ago. Mobile phones would still be horrible, computers would still be ugly and the music industry would have collapsed.

“… What would our world look like without him? We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom. Think back to the phone you had in 2006, and then tell me you don’t love Apple for the iPhone alone (yes, I’ve moved on, but the iPhone was the genesis).”

I’m with Arrington. Let’s give thanks for Steve Jobs.

Today’s Best Thing Ever is Lo-mob, a gorgeous new photo effects app for iPhone.

The emphasis is on decidedly retro-looking shots. There are 28 (count ’em) different effects on offer, ranging from 35mm format film to a variety of instant camera prints.

Lo-mob will take photos from your Camera Roll or let you snap fresh ones. It then takes a few seconds to generate preview thumbnails of all the different effects, and shows you a list. Pick from the list to see a full-size version (you’ll need to wait a few more seconds to see it).

Lo-mob isn’t the fastest app around, and could do with some tweaks to make it easier and faster to use. (Such as: flick left and right to move from one effect to the next; a “save all” feature to save full-size versions of all the effects; and a favorites feature so you can remove the effects you don’t plan on using.)

But those are minor niggles. I really love this app and haven’t been able to stop playing with it. There are a lot of effects apps on the App Store, but none of them have yet managed to offer anything very different (CameraBag remains the best of the bunch). Lo-mob does offer something different, and deserves a place alongside CameraBag on your iPhone.

To give you an idea of what it can do, I’ve taken screenshots of all the different effects.

Here’s the original photo:

These are the “Classic Vintage” effects: