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Today, Twitter announced a new design for the popular micro-blogging site that will start rolling out over the next couple of weeks, which they hope will make it easier than ever to connect with other users and discover great new content.

If you go to Twitter.com, you won’t see the sexy new interface for a while yet, but as part of their push to update all officially supported Twitter platforms to the new paradigm, Twitter has pushed out a totally overhauled version of the Twitter for iPhone app.

When Apple will release the next iPad and what form it will take when they do are only at the theory stage, but smart money says that Apple will release it in the same time table they do every year: March or April.

However, according to Citi analyst Richard Gardner, we may get it a bit early: February 2012. And when it comes, “several sources” have confirmed it will have a Retina Display.

Otherwise, what we know about the iPad 3 is mostly speculation, though it seems likely at this point that it will be slightly thicker than the iPad 2 in order to accommodate the dual LED lightbar necessary to illuminate the Retina Display. That means it won’t be backwards compatible with iPad 2 cases, though the Smart Cover will still work.

How do you know you’re reading a report from a bug-eyed, sensationalist quack? When they take the newest and hottest trend and then say, “It’s almost as bad as this other popular trend amongst godless teenagers today!”

Here’s a good case study. Over at Fox News, a psychiatrist is claiming that Siri is just as damaging psychologically to kids as “violent video games!” WHAT?!?! Heaven forfend!

During an interview at the Le Web expo in Paris this week, Google chairman Eric Schmidt took a stab at Apple and insisted his company’s Android operating system is way ahead of iOS in a number of ways, including affordability and choice. What’s more, Schmidt claims that in six months, Ice Cream Sandwich will offer better functionality.

We’re huge fans of OnLive’s terrific cloud gaming service here at Cult of Mac, and we’re even more excited to hear that it’s coming to iOS devices. The company has announced that an OnLive app is on its way to the App Store, which will allow users to play top-tier console-quality games on the go.

We’re pretty passionate here at the Cult of Mac. What are we passionate about? Well, the pecking order goes something like this (although maybe the order is flipped for one or two CoM writers):

1. Our loved ones

2. Gadgets

Of course, we’re also passionate about sharing our knowledge of gadgets and technology with the rest of the world. Combine these three passions, and here’s the result: our Holiday Gift Guide.

Flipboard released its official iPhone app last night. Many users were frustrated initially with error messages during installation and adding services.

The initial surge in traffic caused Flipboard’s servers to buckle under the strain, but the app came back online for most people this morning and it’s been working fine for me since. After playing with Flipboard on the iPhone, I love the way that it aggregates my news and social network feeds into a personalized magazine. The future of media consumption is here, and it’s all about curation.

According to Japanese Mac blog Macotakara, the iPad 3 will be backwards compatible with current Smart Covers, despite the fact that it will be so thick as to not work with iPad 2 cases.

Macotakara claims that they don’t know the reason the iPad 3 will be thicker than the iPad 2, but we do: it’s necessary in order to install the twin-light system needed to lluminate the iPad 3’s Retina Display.

As for the image above, your guess is as good as ours. Macotakara seems to think it somehow relates to an iPad 3, so maybe it’s the unbranded aluminum back panel of one or something? As for the Smart Cover backwards compatibility, considering that all that is necessary to keep a Smart Cover on are magnets in the right places, I wouldn’t be surprised if Smart Covers continued to be backwards compatible for future iPads for many generations to come.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the so-called iTV, Steve Jobs’s “cracking” of the HDTV problem. But what if the iTV is just a rumor, and Apple instead plans on fixing television by making iMacs into HDTVs?

We published a couple images of the inside of Apple’s new Grand Central store in New York yesterday, which is due to open on Friday, December 9. Plenty more images are set to surface later on today, with media entering the store for the first time at 10 AM local time.

However, someone with a camera seems to have already gained entry, because we now have even more photos of this terrific store.

In my opinion, this statue designed by Hungarian software maker Gabor Bojar is absolutely petrifying, but there’s no doubt that the photo gallery of its construction first posted by the International Business Times is beautifully shot and captivating. We’ve got more images of this bronze Steve Jobs statue after the jump, including an amazing one of Steve Jobs getting his neck welded shut.

With access to over half a million apps in the App Store, getting things done on our iPhones has never been easier. So instead of running around like a headless chicken this Christmas Eve in a desperate bid to buy gifts for all your friends and family, why not sit back, stick your feet up, and do you Christmas shopping on your iPhone?

We’ve compiled a list of the App Store’s best apps for Christmas shopping that will help you plan, save, shop and send cards directly right from the palm of your hand.

We first heard about Apple’s new “spaceship” campus when the company’s co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, presented its plans at the Cupertino City Council Meeting on June 7. The company has now submitted revised plans for the campus, in addition to a new rendering.

Flipboard has launched its official iPhone app with a gorgeous design and the new “Cover Stories” layout, or “the feed to check when you’re in line at the coffee shop, commuting on the train or just hanging out at home.”

Riding the coattails of a phenomenal iPad app, Flipboard is looking to be the best place for reading the internet on your iPhone.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then this Chinese imitation of the MacBook Air is the biggest compliment that Apple has received in a long time. Cleverly called the “AirBook,” this feat of design plagiarism looks exactly like Apple’s MacBook Air.

Costing only $499, the AirBook possesses many similarities to Apple’s notebook, but there some crucial differences. Did we mention that it runs Windows?

The smiling faces make it look like a rowdy night out, but this jubilant photo was snapped with an iPhone in the back of a Russian police van.

Yesterday, Moscow-based blogger Alexey Navalny was carted away by the authorities while documenting the massive protests following the country’s contested parlimentary elections.

“With my lads on the police bus. They all say hi,”  Navalny tweeted in Russian. An hour later, he posted another Instagram photo, this time a group portrait in the Izmailovo jailhouse of everyone arrested.

One of the things that really stands out using an iPhone is just how smooth it feels compared to using Android. Where as Android is laggy, with a measurable interim between when you touch the screen and when the OS responds, iOS almost seems to anticipate what you want to do before your finger touches the display.

How has Apple managed this incredible feat? A better question might be: “How has Google managed to screw up Android’s multitouch so much?” According to Andrew Munn — a software engineering student and ex-Google intern — Android is so messed up that Google might never be able to match an iPhone or iPad’s performance. Ouch!

The next time you are pulled over by police you may encounter a familiar face: your iPhone. Faster than you can say “Book ’em, Dano,” Apple’s handset is quickly becoming law enforcement’s favorite tool for identifying unknown fingerprints. The iPhone’s touchscreen will even be enlisted by the FBI to spot terrorism suspects.

Looking for last minute gift ideas for the proud rebel or misfit in your life? What about this beautiful letterpressed poster by Brightwurks replicates the full text of Steve Jobs’s iconic 1997 “Crazy Ones” ad, with all proceeds going to Acumen Fund, a charity that helps relieve poverty.

The poster is printed on 140# paper and measures 10 inches wide by 26 inches tall. It’s stunningly beautiful, but letterpress isn’t cheap: expect to pay $95 for it unframed, or $195 framed. Full poster can be seen below.

Having rocketed to the top of the book charts in October following the death of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s authorized Steve Jobs biography has quickly become Amazon’s best-selling book of 2011.

At Cult of Mac we’re huge fans of going to the movies. Few experiences can compare to seeing pretty boy Ryan Gosling beating the crap out of Ron Perlman on a towering 70ft x 30ft screen. As long as the film doesn’t feature Shia LaBeouf then we’re down to watch it (sometimes we’ll even make an exception for the former Even Stevens star). The only problem is that showing up to the movie theater in your underwear is frowned upon in most countries. Thankfully, Epson makes some pretty kick ass projectors that bring the movie theater experience to your home so you don’t have to bother with those weird things called “pants.”

This week we’re really lucky to be teaming up with the awesome folks at Epson to give away a brand new iPhone-compatible projector. $700 is already a pretty awesome price for their superb projector, but because it’s Christmas, they’re generously letting us giveaway their brand new MegaPlex MG-50HD Projector for free! Without a doubt this is the coolest projector we’ve ever gotten our hands on. It comes with two built-in 10-watt speakers, a dock for your iPhone or iPad and is incredibly portable so you can take the fun with you wherever you go.

Speaking from experience, watching Home Alone and Elf on this thing will make the holidays 50 times more pleasurable no matter which of your annoying family members decides to pay you a visit for Christmas.

Here are the rules on how to enter the giveaway:

In late 2010, Steve Jobs commented on the sudden influx of 7-inch tablets by calling them ‘tweeners. He said that Apple had considered 7-inch displays for the iPad, but after extensive testing, a 7-inch screen was too small to really be useable.

Android tablet makers, of course, scoffed… then rushed to market with their own 10-inch tablets once they discovered that Steve Jobs was telling the truth. So how long until Amazon updates the Kindle Fire to 10-inches? The results of Kindle Fire usability studies are in, and the 7-inch Kindle Fire is an ugly, hideous mess of missed taps and users screaming out of frustration.

With every new iPhone, we know to expect a faster processor and faster GPU. However, a weird report coming out of Germany says that Apple isn’t just testing new CPUs and GPUs for the next generation of iPhone… they are also testing some truly bizarro resolutions that could indicate that Apple will radically redesign the iPhone in 2012 to be even higher resolution and with an entirely new aspect ratio.

Ever since Jobs enigmatically said in his bio that he had “cracked” the television problem, people have been going nuts speculating… and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has gone so far as to say that the iTV will cost twice as much as a regular television set, and come in three different sizes.

Well, looks like Munster’s forecast has some corroborating evidence. A new report not only says that Apple’s iTV will come in three different sizes, but that it will also pack Apple’s next-gen A6 CPU.

Everyone knows that OS X has code names, and how they work: each version of OS X comes branded as a carnivorous big cat, ranked from smallest to largest. Likewise, Android’s got code names up their wazoo, twee little monikers taken from the realm of desserts like Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich.

But did you know that iOS has code names too? They aren’t publicized, but internally, Apple refers to the latest version of iOS by a number of cool monikers.