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Early reviews of Amazon’s Kindle Fire haven’t been kind, but I like the device. It’s a versatile and enjoyable little media tablet.

It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not (a general-purpose tab), and though not as polished as Apple’s products, its a good first try.

The trouble is that everyone is comparing the Kindle Fire to the iPad, and it will always come up short. The Kindle Fire is actually closer to the iPod touch, but it’s not that either. It’s a well-made, well-designed window into Amazon’s media ecosystem, and on that score, it succeeds very well.

Hauling my back end out of bed each morning is a horrible task, especially during the winter months. Even with the recommended eight hours sleep, I never wake up feeling refreshed. However, I was hoping all that was about to change, thanks to a little app-enhanced headband.

The WakeMate ($60) is an accessory and app for your iOS device that has two main objectives: to help you track and analyze your sleep pattern; and to wake you up at the optimal time in your sleep cycle so that you feel better about waking up early — which is just what I needed.

It’s that time of the year. The busiest shopping day in existence is nearly upon us: Black Friday.

As Apple and iOS fanatics, we naturally look to the App Store for useful apps when life’s obstacles are thrown our way. The topic of Black Friday is no exception, so we’ve collected some of the best, free iPhone apps available to help you make the most out of your shopping experience this year.

Forget Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Boston and all the rest of the 995 protests. The Occupy movement is now coming to your browser, but not how you’d expect: they want to eliminate Adobe Flash from all web browsers.

Earlier this week we announced our newest Cult of Mac Deal – a $79 iOS App Development Course. To make things even better for our awesome readers, this weekend we’re having a giveaway for one free admission into the course so you can get started on turning your ideas into the next great app. This contest will run from today till Sunday, November 20th at 9PM PST. The rules for entering are incredibly simple; here’s what you got to do to enter.

If I told you that Pirates of Silicon Valley star Noah Wyle was set to return to the screen as Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic based upon Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography, you’d probably say, “Great Choice!” After all, Wyle was great as Steve. The role fits him. It would be wonderful to see him settle back into it over a decade later, and finish the arc.

Now, what if I told you that Noah Wyle had some competition for the role of Steve, and that competition was his old ER co-star George Clooney? What would you say then? My guess is your response would be the same as mine: “What the fffffffff……”

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a nasty, totally broken little power grab of a bill that would effectively end the concept of ‘safe harbor’ that has allowed the internet to grow and thrive over the last ten years by allowing the government to add websites to a DNS blacklist for posting any kind of copyrighted material, fair use or not.

The bill’s so stupid and the outrage over it so deafening that it’s doubtless it will be never make it into law. Too many people are openly angry about it, including Mozilla, 4Chan, Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, AOL, Wikimedia, the ACLU, Twitter and Yahoo!

You know who supports SOPA, though? Apple. In fact, they are writing a check to support it, albeit indirectly. It’s a check iTunes Match might have to cash.

Jabra isn’t an organization afraid of veering off the main road; it seems to use many of its high-end Bluetooth gadgets as design and technology showpieces — sometimes with unfortunate results (the Stone sacrifced performance for a radically shaped body, and the Halo headphones were all kinds of awful).

But when Jabra isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s actually able to give us stuff that’s pretty darn good. The outfit’s newest creation is the high-end Jabra Supreme ($100), the first monoaural Bluetooth headset to offer active noise-cancelling technology in its earpiece, along with all the other goodies usually stuffed into a primo ‘set. So Jabra’s definitely gone the showcase route with the Supreme — but this time, the headset is also an outstanding performer.

US carriers can’t sell the iPhone 4S fast enough, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. Potential iPhone customers are still unable to get their eager hands on Apple’s coveted smartphone, with many carriers estimating shipping dates of 1-3 weeks.

Initial iPhone 4S sales have made the device Apple’s fastest-selling product of all time, and demand continues to outpace supply.

A method has been uncovered that unlocks the GSM iPhone 4S for T-Mobile. By taking advantage of an alleged bug in iOS 5, you can supposedly unlock your iPhone 4S on AT&T without jailbreaking.

To perform the hack, you’ll need a T-Mobile Micro SIM and your AT&T SIM from your iPhone 4S.

Apple has a long history of taking a technology created by Xerox and transforming it into the heart and soul of computing, such as the mouse or the concept of a graphic user interface. Now comes word Apple owns a Xerox patent for location based services. The patent could prompt Apple to sue a wide array of companies, ranging from Android-backer Google to social networking giant Facebook and any others relying on the ability to check users’ location.

With the Kindle Fire, Amazon has proved that it is possible to compete with the iPad, at least in the budget tablet market. Will they try to take the crown from the iPhone’s head next with a so-called Kindle Phone? Yup, maybe!

Rumors that Apple’s third-generation will launch early next year have been strengthened by claims from “industry sources” today, who say the Cupertino company has moved to control supplies of its iPad 2 in a bid to reduce excess inventory. It will reportedly reduce the number of displays manufactured by the likes of Samsung, LG Display, and Chimei Innolux during the fourth quarter of 2011, which could lead to a reduction in iPad shipments.

https://vimeo.com/31513704

Ticket to Ride began as a hugely successful, massively award-winning board game, then jumped to the iPad and rocked the gaming world all over again as a shining example of what a board game should be on the iPad. Today, it’s set to take the mobile gaming world by storm again as it emerges on the iPhone — and it’s going to go through the roof.

Still having battery life issues on your iPhone 4S under iOS 5.0.1? We’ve already proven the issue is a software problem, not a hardware problem, which means Apple should be able to fix the iPhone 4S’s electric arterial spray… but when?

Real soon, as it happens. In fact, one Apple software engineer says the iOS 5.0.2 update is coming next week. In addition, Apple’s working on its first big point release of iOS 5, which will bring new extensions and abilities to Siri!

It seems early iPhone 4S adopters the world over have discovered a new issue with Apple’s latest handset. No, it has nothing to do with poor battery life, but rather a complete loss of signal for no apparent reason. To be clear, this isn’t a new “antennagate” — the issue does not occur while holding the device in a certain position — it’s a new problem that causes the device to lose its signal randomly. Users report they can be enjoying a full five-bar signal one minute, then be greeted by that frustrating “No Service” status the next.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been blunt about Cupertino’s plans for adopting LTE: they’d love to, but they’re waiting on next-gen LTE chipsets that aren’t so power-thirsty they’ll turn your iPhone’s battery pack into a desiccated husk within seconds of flipping the 4G radio on.

Well, Qualcomm may have just announced the next-gen LTE chipset that might finally allow Apple to roll out 4G speeds to iDevices in 2012.

After months of anticipation, Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire started shipping yesterday, but even since its unveiling critics have been labeling it a worthy iPad competitor. Its pocket-pleasing price tag coupled with its terrific user interface could make it the first tablet to really give the iPad something to worry about.

But how does it stack up to Apple’s device in terms of performance? Well, at less than $200, none of us expected the Kindle Fire to really match the iPad 2’s speed, but as you’ll see in this video comparison, it does a fantastic job of keeping up while browsing the web, and it’s significantly quicker and streaming Netflix videos.

In a press release sent out just moments ago, Apple has just announced that former Genentech CEO Arthur D. Levinson has filled the vacant Chairman of the Board position that Steve Jobs left empty by his death in October.

Levinson has been on Apple’s board since 2005 as co-lead director and served on all three board committees over that period.

In addition, Apple has announced that Disney President and CEO Robert A. Iger will be joining Apple’s board and will serve on the audit committee.

Press release below.

Steve Jobs’s legacy on the mobile industry is uncontested, but instead of just changing the balance of power between handset makers and the carriers, Jobs’s original vision was even more revolutionary: he wanted Apple to become a carrier using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum.

Great spot by 9to5Mac: Amazon just dropped the price of the Apple TV by $10 to just $89.99; they’ve also rechristened it the ‘2010’ model.

Could Amazon know something the rest of us poor suckers don’t? Is an updated 2011 Apple TV incoming in time for Black Friday? If so, don’t expect much besides a bump to an A5 chip: if Apple were to, say, bring Siri to the Apple TV, they’d definitely make a big fuss over it in an event.

If you’ve been sitting around debating whether or not to buy the Fall 2011 Mac MEGA Bundle, you better hurry the heck up and make a decision. The Deals.CultofMac Fall 2011 Mac MEGA Bundle will only be available for another 20 hours. If you’ve ever wanted to test your hand at web development, give Flux a go; you won’t find it cheaper than here! We’re busting out the Fall 2011 Mac MEGA Bundle  packed with great creation tools as well as productivity goodies and utilities. This bundle has 8 top Apps worth a total of $300 that we’re able to sell for $35. This bundle has a shorter lifespan than some of our other deals, though, and will only be around for 6 days, so get it while you still have the chance.

We’ve seen a lot of Steve Jobs tributes since his death in October, but this one is particularly impressive. Speed painter Aaron Kizer took to the stage at the 11th Hour Live Music and Arts Show in Owensboro, Kentucky and in a blur of brushes painted an incredible portrait of Steve Jobs in just six minutes.

Remarkable. Check out the full video below.

In an intriguing note, a Wall Street analyst suggests Samsung — you know, the South Korean company keeping Apple’s legal department in yachts and private islands — could be one of the beneficiaries of $3.4 billion Apple will spend to retool suppliers’ factories in 2012. Or Apple could just build itself a couple of state-of-the-art chip factories from scratch.

Apple’s MacBook Air has been an incredibly popular machine since the company introduced solid-state drives as standard and reduced its price tag back in October 2010. But for some, it just doesn’t come big enough.

However, dreams of a 15-inch model are about to come true, according to sources in Apple’s supply chain. And it’ll be here by March 2012.