Tech company Kanex recently showed off their new DualRole USB hub and Ethernet adapter at the MacWorld conference this year. The highly portable accessory works great with the latest generation retina display Macbook Pros, offering three USB 3.0 ports, as well as a Gigabit ethernet adapter.

One of the issues with the retina display MBPs were that they were too thin for Apple to build an ethernet port into. This would be inconvenient, for example, when travelers were staying at hotels that did not offer WiFi, only wired ethernet connections. With the DualRole, this issue has been resolved.

You can find out more about the Kanex DualRole on the company’s website. It’s currently going for $69.

For just today and tomorrow, Best Buy is offering discount on any iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, which brings the price of the latest-generation iPhone to just $150. This deal comes with a standard 2-year contract. To get it, just follow the link here, or go to BestBuy.com.

This is one of the cheapest deals we’ve seen on the iPhone 5 thus far. Similar previous deals for the iPhone 5 have been going out of stock super fast, so we suggest you hurry!

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According to various sources citing an article from the Wall Street Journal, Apple recently cut its order for iPhone 5 parts by 50%. We aren’t exactly sure why, but it could be to adjust for the new 6 month cycle of releasing new devices that Apple has been going by recently, as opposed to the company’s old habit of releasing new products once a year. However, some investors felt that this could be due to weak demand for the latest generation iPhone, and just briefly, the company’s stock dipped below the $500 mark.

As opposed to prices from last Friday, Apple stock closed at $501.77 today, compared to $520.30, which is quite a significant drop for a single day alone. Apple is supposed to be releasing its earnings report for the first fiscal quarter of 2013 on January 23rd. This could either confirm or allay the doubts that some investors are having.

According to a new report by analyst Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets, the next generation iPad and iPad mini could be released as early as March of this year, less than three months away. Previously, Apple maintained the tradition of releasing a new generation model of a product roughly once per year, but broke tradition by unexpectedly releasing the iPad 4 late last year.

Here’s more from what White had to say:

Our checks at CES indicate Apple will release the iPad 5 and the second-generation iPad mini this March. The iPad 5 is expected to be lighter and thinner than the iPad 4 that was released in October, while the form factor of the iPad mini should be similar to the first generation iPad mini that debuted in October.

These more frequent product updates could be a result of Apple’s attempts to keep up with the competition, although market share surveys still show that the iPad is still by far the most popular tablet on the market. However, by releasing product updates more frequently, users may be hesitant as to upgrade their devices as often as they otherwise may.

Exactly twelve years have passed since Apple first announced its revolutionary media download and management software, iTunes 1.0. The release of the original iTunes, along with the iPod, were perhaps the two biggest contributing factors to Apple’s turnaround from its struggles in the 90′s. And now, just a little more than a decade later, Apple has become one of the biggest companies on the planet, and arguably the most influential.

By the way, in case you didn’t know, Apple’s Safari browser turned 10 years of age just two days ago. More info on that here.

The original iTunes 1.0

It’s important to consider just how big of an impact iTunes had on Apple and its success. What really set apart the iPhone from its competitors were two things:

1. It’s revolutionary design, with a full-sized touch screen
2. Apps, and the ease at which they could be downloaded

iTunes was a strong platform that already was in existence for many years before the iPhone was released, and millions of people already had iTunes accounts. It wasn’t any trouble for them to simply connect their iPhone with their iTunes accounts and begin installing new software straight from their phone. iTunes as a platform was just as important to the iPhone’s success as the design of the phone itself.

And we all know how it went down from there, with the iPhone being released in 2007 and an open developer-driven App Store in 2008. In 2010 came the iPad, and in late 2011, Apple became, for the first time, the most valuable company in the world.

Yep, it all really comes back to iTunes. Happy 12th birthday, and may you have many more in the future!

It’s been about three weeks since Apple last released OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 12D44 to developers on December 20th, 2012. Just yesterday, Mac developers got access to 10.8.3 build 12D50. We’re not sure what’s different about this Mountain Lion build compared to the previous one, but Apple is asking developers using the OS to focus on AirPlay, Game Center, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. You can check out the full release notes below:

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 build 12D50 Seed Note

OS X Mountain Lion Update 10.8.3 is an update to OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.

Installation Instructions

Please be aware that you will not be able to revert back to your previous system after updating. Please install this update on a system you are prepared to erase if necessary.

- If you have already installed the “OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility”, choose “Software Update” from the Apple menu. Otherwise, proceed with the following steps.

- Log into your Apple Developer account and download the “OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility”.
- After running the installer, the Mac App Store will open automatically. Click on the Updates panel and OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 build 12D50 will now be available for download.
- When a newer seed build is available, you will receive a notification to update from the Mac App Store. Click the notification to begin the installation. New seed notes will be posted in the Mac Dev Center.
- To stop receiving new seed builds, go to the Software Update Preference in System Preferences and where it says “Your computer is set to receive pre- release Software Update seeds”, press the “Change…” button.

Note: If you are using a computer which gets its updates from a local Software Update server, the OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility will reconfigure your machine to use Apple’s Software Update servers. Your computer must be able to connect to Apple’s Software Update servers to install the seed. We recommend that you remove any Configuration Profile that specifies a local Software Update server before installing the OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility.

Known Issues

- None

Focus Areas

- AirPlay
- AirPort
- Game Center
- Graphics Drivers

- Safari

Bug Reporting

This build is being provided to you for testing and development purposes. Should you encounter any problems, please submit a bug report using the online Bug Reporter atbugreporter.apple.com. Please make sure to include “10.8.3 (12D50)” in the bug title and description. This information will ensure that your bug is processed quickly.

When submitting a bug report, please make sure to include a Summary, Steps to Reproduce, Expected Results, Actual Results, and the diagnostic output generated by running ‘sudo sysdiagnose’ in the Terminal.

For complete instructions on submitting bug reports, please visit the Bug Reporting page athttp://developer.apple.com/bugreporter

Thank you for your support, Worldwide Developer Relations Apple, Inc.

Legal Notices

The OS X pre-release software identified above and the OS X Software Update Seed Configuration Utility are Apple Confidential Information and your use of such software is subject to your Registered Apple Developer Agreement, Mac Developer Program License Agreement, and the applicable license agreements accompanying such software. Distributing such software to anyone other than another Registered Apple Developer who is working for the same entity as you is considered a violation of your agreement with Apple and is damaging to both Apple and those who develop for the Appleplatform. We sincerely appreciate your efforts to keep this Apple software Confidential.

You agree that you will not export or reexport any of the software or Confidential Information received from Apple (a) into (or to a national or resident of) any U.S. embargoed countries or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Person’s List or Entity List. You also agree that you will not use said software for any purposes where prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missile, chemical or biological weapons.

We don’t know whether they’re kidding or not about the “nuclear, missile, chemical, or biological weapons” part.

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iPhone5Mod.com is a website that designs and sells accessories/modifications for the iPhone 5. Amidst all of the other announcements this week, including rumors of a new iPhone in the works, iPhone5Mod released a mod for iPhone 5 owners, allowing them to replace the traditional back and side covers of their iPhone with translucent ones instead. With this mod, users can see right into the interior of the iPhones.

Check out their promotional video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The mod is currently selling for $39.90, and comes in seven different colors. All in all, you will need to replace nine parts to complete the mod. If you’re feeling spontaneous and want to mix and match the colors, you can purchase the mod in all seven colors for $169. Once you’re done modding, pretty much every part of your iPhone will be translucent, except for the front.

If you want to make your iPhone 5 stand out from the crowd, you may want to consider this mod. Get it from iPhone5Mod.com by following the link here.

Some 10 months or so after Apple CEO Tim Cook’s last visit to China, he’s made another trip out. It may be interesting to note that since Cook’s last trip, Apple has more than doubled its retail presence in the country, from 5 Apple stores back in early 2012 to 11 at the current time. As to the details of his trip, well we only have bits and pieces.

Cook reportedly met with U.S. ambassador Gary Locke, as well as several other officials. Bloomberg has more on the story:

Cook today met Miao Wei, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, to talk about the development of China’s information technology industry, global mobile communications and Apple’s business in China, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

As we mentioned in our previous post speculating about a larger-but-cheaper iPhone for emerging markets, there has been a lot of speculation about whether Cook is trying to work out a deal with China Mobile, China’s largest phone carrier. Of the three big telecommunication companies in China, China Mobile is the only one that does not yet support the iPhone.

Consider the following scenario: Apple has just announced that it’s going to spin off its iPad branch and form a new company called The iPad Inc. That’s right, folks. The iPad is ditching its brothers, the iPhone and the iPod, in pursuit of individual glory. Take a moment to consider what impact this would have on the world. And after you’re done, continuing reading this post.

There are two main conclusions that could be drawn. First, a company by the name of Molina Healthcare would be very unhappy. Why, you ask? Well, if the iPad did indeed become its own independent company, it would place at #98 in Fortune‘s list of the largest 500 companies in the world, ahead of McDonald’s, Nike, and a ton of other well known organizations. In addition, it would also knock Molina Healthcare off the Fortune 500 list, placing it at #501.

The second conclusion is that the iPad would be the 11th largest Tech company in the United States. Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi believes that the iPad will reach sales of about $46 billion in the year 2013. Afterwards, he says, growth will begin to slow. NOT because the competition have caught up, though, but because of iPad market saturation. As TUAW puts it, the world will have reached a point where

everyone and their brother will have an iPad.

In all seriousness though, it’s amazing to see what Apple has created. It is truly spectacular when just a branch of a company’s many operations alone can be compared with some of the other most well known corporations out there in the world.

According to an article recently posted by DigiTimes, Apple may be working on a larger but cheaper iPhone to target emerging markets through the world such as China. In countries where people may not be wealthy enough to afford a “standard” iPhone, this device would be a viable alternative. DigiTimes apparently got its information from “supply-chain sources.”

Some sources claimed that they have seen the sample of the low-cost iPhone, which will come with a larger display, meeting the prevailing trend for the adoption of 5-inch displays for high-end models. They added that the low-priced iPhone will also have a brand new exterior design.

Meanwhile, Apple is still in negotiations with China Mobile, the world’s largest phone carrier, about an iPhone that runs on their carrier. Previously, it was rumored that Tim Cook was talking with the company about plans for the iPhone, but we haven’t seen any tangible results yet. If China Mobile were to start carrying the iPhone, this would mean a great more number of people potentially purchasing the device in China.

Anyways, what do you think? Is there really going to be another iPhone released some time in the second half of 2013, one that’s specifically targeted for emerging markets? And what would this mean for Apple as a company? They’ve been known for their high quality products, could this new iPhone potentially hurt their reputation? Post your thoughts in the comments below!

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We don’t know how long this is gonna last, but for the time being Adobe has put their entire CS2 productivity suite up for free download for both Windows and Mac users. If you’ve still got a older Windows or Mac computer, and don’t mind the fact that this software was released by Adobe in 2005 and may not come with all the latest snazzy features, you may consider picking this up by following the link here.

The system requirements for running the CS2 productivity suite are as follows:

• Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8. PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor
• Microsoft® Windows® 2000/Windows XP. Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor

Serial numbers are provided on the download page.

If you’ve ever wondered how much free space you have left on your iDevice, well then wonder no more. Here’s a quick way to check how many videos, songs, apps, etc, you have installed, as well as how much free space is left on your device. This can be done without the installation of any third party apps or software, but straight from the Settings apps. You just gotta know where to look.

Step 1: As I’ve said earlier open up that settings app and go the General tab.

Step 2: Go into the about tab.

Step 3: From here, you can find out what’s taking up space on your iDevice, as well as how much space you have left, under “Available.”

That’s it!

It was ten years ago on this day that Steve Jobs and Apple officially released the Safari browser that comes preinstalled in every iOS and Mac device you purchase. Here’s a great clip on YouTube showing Steve unveiling Apple’s signature web browser back at Macworld San Francisco on January 7th, 2003. We sure have come a long way since then.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you were one of the original users of the Safari web browser when it was first released, consider yourself lucky to have lived through and experienced the vast number of changes that Apple has gone through, and through the company, how the lives of tech consumers all over the world have been affected.

Happy 10th birthday Safari!

In an announcement released by Apple today, the company announced that it has hit a major milestone in the number of apps that have been downloaded through its App Store. Apple said that it just hit 40 billion total apps downloaded from the App Store, with a record of ~2 billion apps downloaded in December 2012 alone. Furthermore, about 20 billion apps, or half the company’s running total, were downloaded in the year 2012 alone.

The App Store has come so far since launching mid-2008. In Apple’s press release, the company also outlined some of the great highlights of the App Store, and the success that developers have seen:

In 2012, the husband and wife team at Imangi Studios saw their game Temple Run downloaded more than 75 million times; Backflip Studios and Supercell, two emerging game development studios, brought in over $100 million combined for their leading freemium titles DragonVale and Clash of Clans; and emerging services including Uber, Flipboard, HotelTonight, and AirBnB attracted millions of users on iOS. Companies including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Autodesk, Marvel and Major League Baseball continued to expand their iOS offerings, while developers like JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Interactive and Bottle Rocket Apps continued to push the boundaries of what iOS apps can do.

Surely the App Store and Apple are set to create new milestones in 2013.

CowBoom, an online retailer, currently is offering used 32GB WiFi models of the 3rd generation iPad for $419.99, with the coupon code “iPad50” dropping the price $50 from its original $469.99. Free shipping is available.  This is a great deal for those who are looking for an iPad but want to save a bit of money. Comparatively, Best Buy currently has the same model iPad for $449.99, although they do offer it new instead of used. Walmart also has the same model refurbished for $499.99, on their website.

Keep in mind that used devices may have scratches and other slight damages to their physical appearances. However, the device should be fully functional.

You can grab this deal from CowBoom.com here.

Although you may not know it, Apple has actually built private browsing right into the iOS operating system through their default Safari web browsing application. This means that you don’t have to prowl through the App Store to look for a competent private browsing app! All you have to do is enable private browsing through the iOS Settings app. Read on to find out how to turn on private browsing for Safari.

Step 1: Open up the Settings app and scroll down to where it says “Safari.” The button you’re looking for is provided in the screenshot below:

Step 2: Tap into the Safari tab and look under the “Privacy” settings. There, you should see the option to turn private browsing on or off. Just toggle the settings, and you’ll be able to switch between private and normal browsing as you please:

That’s it!  Apple has also made it easy to distinguish between regalar and private browsing in the Safari app. Once you turn on private browsing in the Settings, your Safari app will change from its traditional blue colored menus to black, as shown in the screenshot below. This way, you’ll always know whether you’re running on private or normal browsing, without having the check the Settings app.

By the way, if you’re interested in using Safari to add home screen shortcuts of your favorite websites, make sure you check out this article here.

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According to a recently published article from the New York Times covering an ongoing government investigation into companies and their ways of circumventing U.S. taxes, Apple revealed that the company contributed about 2.5% of the total corporate taxes that were collected by the U.S. government in 2012.

In a statement, Apple said,

In fiscal 2012 we paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes, which is 1 out of every 40 dollars in corporate income taxes collected by the U.S. government.

As is the habit of many large corporations, Apple minimizes the amount of tax it pays by routing its profits to overseas branches of the company, where often time the tax rates are much lower. According to the NYTimes, as much as 70% of the company’s profits could have been allocated overseas.

It is interesting to keep in mind the scale of Apple’s operations, as the $6 billion we mentioned earlier only reflects taxes that were paid in the United States. Factor in Apple’s international operations (which the company has been rapidly expanding throughout the past few years), and we may get a glimpse of just much impact Apple has in the global economy.

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Apple is now offering refurbished retina display MBPs starting at $1869, the first time we’ve seen them offer these latest Macbooks as refurb. The refurb models are selling at 15% off their standard prices, so if you’re not picky as to whether they are refurbished or not, you can save a quick $330 on the basic retina display MBP (normally $2199.) Like the company’s new retina display MBPs, the refurbs come with one year of AppleCare.

To check out the refurbished models that Apple has on sale, just go to their online store.

For the next 10 days, Google Offers has a great deal on a bunch of the latest iPhone 5 accessories. They’re currently offering the new earpods, a standard wall charger, a standard car charger, and a lightning connector with 10ft cable, for just $17 + $5 shipping. The standard retail price for Apple’s new earpods alone is around $30, and with this deal you’re getting the earpods + three other accessories, for a bit more than 2/3 of the price.

Apple Earpods

After purchasing from Google Offers, you’ll have to redeem this deal from CostBrothers.com, which currently has the same iPhone 5 accessory kit going for $106.00. You can grab this great offer any time within the next 10 days and 15 hours (as of the time of this writing), by following this link.

Previously, we’ve written about how to use keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots of your Mac computer screen, including covering how to save screenshots to your copy/paste clipboard. But besides using keyboard shortcuts, you can also take screenshots by using the “screencapture” command in Terminal. Here’s a quick tutorial showing you how to do this.

In case you’ve never used Terminal before, you can open it up by accessing your Applications folder, clicking into Utilities, and clicking the Terminal app. Once you’re there, you’ll be able to run commands such as the one we’re going to use to take screenshots.

The code for taking a screenshot using Terminal is as follows:

screencapture -iW ~/Desktop/screen.jpg

There are two obvious advantages of using Terminal to take screenshots rather than keyboard shortcuts, although I must admit the latter is the faster of the two options. First of all, you have the ability to specify where exactly you would like to save the screenshot. In the case for the code above, the screenshot will be saved on the desktop.

The second advantage is that you also have the ability to choose what file format you would like to use when you take the screenshot. In the case above, we’re choosing to use the JPEG format, but a variety of other file types are available to you, including tiff, pdf, png, bmp or pict.

That’s it!

According to NetMarketShare, a website that tracks trends of operating system and web browser usage throughout the Internet, Mountain Lion, as of December 2012, has replaced its predecessor, OS X Lion, as the most popular Mac operating system. Reportedly, 32% of all Macs that are online are using the Mountain Lion operating system. It may also be interesting to note that although Lion was released after Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard currently is being used about 1% more than Lion. This is most likely attributed to the fact that Snow Leopard was, for a long time, such a strong and stable build of Mac OS X.

Here’s how the three Mac operating systems mentioned above stand:

Mountain Lion is in the lead at 32% market share. In December 2012, Lion lost 2% market share, dropping from 30% 28%. Snow Leopard, comparatively, lost 1% market share, from 30% to 29%. Cumulatively, these two factors helped drive Mountain Lion to the top. 

Electronic Arts is currently offering a few of their most popular titles absolutely free, and they’re certainly being quite original about it. Rather than simply just cutting app store prices, EA has implemented something they call their Daily Spin. Just visit this page on any iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, and you should be automatically redirected to their Daily Spin webapp. There, you’ll have the chance to win a promo code for one of the games listed below:

TETRIS®

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $0.99

MASS EFFECT™ INFILTRATOR

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $4.99

BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY™ 2

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $2.99

The Sims 3

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $6.99

Mirror's Edge™ for iPad

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $9.99

Skate It by EA

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $0.99

Lemonade Tycoon

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $0.99

We don’t know how long this is going to last, but for now, it’s a great chance to win some free titles to add to your iOS device. By the way, you can spin once per day, so make sure you come back every day to win another FREE app.

Most people  who have used the Mac operating system for a long time probably know how to use keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots. Today we’re here to share some more advanced keyboard shortcuts for those of you who are looking for some more advanced screenshot features. Specifically, in this post we’re going to teach you how to take a screenshot, but save it to your copy/paste clipboard, instead of to the desktop, which is its default save location.

First, let’s review some prerequisite information. To take a screenshot of your entire screen (or screens if you’re running dual monitors), you’re going to be using the keyboard shortcut below:

Command+Shift+3

If you want to take a screenshot of a part of your screen, use the following command, then select the area you wish to be saved to the desktop:

Command+Shift+4

Most people who have any experience with Mac OS probably know these two frequently used keyboard shortcuts. Unsurprisingly, taking a screenshot then saving it to your clipboard is a similar process. To do so, just copy use the keyboard shortcuts above, but add the “Control” button:

To take a screenshot of your entire screen and save it to your clipboard, use the following keyboard shortcut:

Command+Control+Shift+3

To take a screenshot of a part of your screen and copy it to the clipboard, use the following keyboard shortcut:

Command+Control+Shift+4

That’s it!

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A company from Tampa, Florida, called Soundwaves of Tampa, which works on various car mods, has modified a Volkswagon Jetta by installing an iPad Mini to the dashboard of the car. Furthermore, they hooked up the iPad to the car’s sound system, so all media will play using the car’s speakers. According to Soundwaves of Tampa, they achieved this mod by using a magnetic clip to attach the iPad mini to the car’s dashboard. We have to admit that the final result looks pretty sweet.

Here’s their video, allowing you to check out the mod with your own eyes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few months ago, the same company also worked on a similar iPad Mini car mod, only this time for the 2012 Toyota Corolla. You can check that out from TUAW, here.

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Editors’ Note: This tutorial was written for iTunes 11.0.1.

Ever since iTunes 11 was released, I’ve discovered a lot of features that really make the newest version of Apple’s popular media library manager stand out from previous versions of the app. As I was browsing through my music today, I discovered quite an interesting (and useful) feature that seems to be built in to the new iTunes: the ability to quickly view the media you’ve recently played.

Now, the ability to view recently played music has been around for years now on iTunes. Previously, iTunes kept a playlist that updated as you played new music. If you wanted to look at your history, you would access the playlist, and choose a song from there. However, this new methodology allows you to view your recently played media without ever leaving the current screen you’re on. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: To start off, open up iTunes and click the little list button to the right of you “Now Playing” information:

Step 2:

This will bring up a new menu. The beauty of this is that it doesn’t change the screen you’re currently on. To view your recently played music, click the little clock button that shows up on this menu (shown below):

This shows you a pretty thorough list of all the media you’ve played before. To play one again, just simply double click the media you would like to play.

That’s it! This is a simple and unobtrusive way to display your recently played music, movies, etc.

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Ever wanted to keep your Macbook turned on, even when you may be away from your computer and leaving it idle? Apple built this feature right into the Mac OS X operating system, so there’s no need for any extra tweaking to do so! All it involves is configuring a setting in the System Preferences app. To find out how to keep your Macbook turned on, even when the computer is idle, read on.

As I mentioned before, configuration for your Macbook’s sleep timers is in the System Preferences app. Launch the app up and look for the Power Saver settings:

In these settings, you can control different settings depending on whether your Macbook is attached to an external power source, or whether it is running on its own battery power. Either way, you can configure computer and display sleep times using the sliders shown in the screenshot below:

If you want to keep your Macbook turned on indefinitely, even when the computer is idle, simply drag the slider over to the very right, where it says “Never.”

That’s it!

If I were to list some of the simplest, yet most useful apps that I have downloaded on my Mac, a nifty little program that lives on my menu bar called Caffeine would definitely be in the top 5. As it is aptly named, Caffeine is an unobtrusive app that acts as a toggle for the Mac’s “sleep” functionality. By activating Caffeine, the app overrides any “sleep” timer that you might have put on your Mac through the System Preferences, allowing your computer to stay on until you choose to disable Caffeine again.

Caffeine

Developer: Lighthead Software
Price: free

• 

How might this be useful, you might ask? One of the frequent ways that I use Caffeine is when I need to keep my computer on for long downloads (perhaps a video game or movie.) When your Mac goes to sleep, it automatically stops all downloads that are in progress, so leaving your computer idle while you wait to finish downloading that new game will stop the download the moment your Mac goes into sleep mode. Of course, you can simply disable sleep mode in the System Preferences, but instead of going through all that trouble, Caffeine allows you to do it with a simple click of a button, right from the menu bar.

Another way that I frequently use Caffeine is for when I’m watching movies on my Mac. Because I don’t usually touch the mouse or do anything interactive with the computer when I’m watching a movie, after some time I see the screen dim (warning me that I’m about to go into sleep mode) and I have to wiggle my mouse to brighten the screen again. This problem is completely eliminated with the use of this nifty app.

Perhaps the biggest issue users have reportedly had with the Caffeine app is that it doesn’t allow you to keep your Mac active even when you close the lid. However, it is important to note that although doing this is possible, one of the biggest problems that is created is the potential risk of causing your Mac to overheat. There’s really no advantage to getting your Macbook to stay on, even when you close the lid.

Caffeine is available as a free download on the Mac App Store. You can get it using the one of the download links conveniently located on this page. Get Caffeine.

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Back in June of 2012, the alpha version of the Bluestacks App Player was first released for the Mac OS. The purpose of the app was simple: to allow users to run Android-based applications on the Mac operating system. Now, just a few days ago, the beta for Bluestacks was released to the public, and now supports both Windows and Mac operating systems. Most significantly, Bluestacks claims to support the download and use of over 750,000 Android apps on your Windows PC or Mac.

Bluestacks is Freeware, meaning that pretty much anyone can download and use the service for free. Overall, my experience with Bluestacks, especially considering that it is a free application, was a favorable one. There were, however, a few tough spots that you might run in to.

Stuck on loading screen

I don’t know whether its because Bluestacks is being flooded with users, or for some other unknown reason, but sometimes I will get stuck on the loading screen for the app (depicted below). Even after waiting 10 or 15 minutes, I’m still not actually presented with the Bluestacks interface. Try your luck; sometimes the app works for me, sometimes it doesn’t.

Unable to download some apps

Bluestacks claims to support over 750,000 applications, but for me, a lot of the apps that I wanted to get could not be downloaded. For example, one of the first apps that I tried to download was the popular title “Temple Run.” However, to my disappointment, the app would never download, and thus never run. Other apps such as Evernote downloaded just fine, but I guess either Bluestacks doesn’t support games, or Temple Run was not one of the 750,000 apps that were supported.

Apps don’t run in full screen

What you seem to be getting with Bluestacks is an Android tablet emulator. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to actually run these apps at full screen. On my 13″ Macbook Pro, the Bluestacks app will take up a good 70% of your screen space, but so far I haven’t been able to get the app to maximize to the full 1280×800 dimensions that I usually enjoy with apps such as Chrome or iTunes.

Overall, Bluestacks beta seems like a pretty good starting product, but I don’t believe the app was designed with games in mind. Some of the apps that Bluestacks does support will be sure to please some users through, including Pulse news reader, Instagram, and more.

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Just as we close out the year of 2012, Zynga is announcing that its shutting down 11 of its titles that haven’t lived up to the company’s expectations in social gaming. Although most of these titles aren’t very popular, a few of these games have received a bit of traction within the social gaming community, specifically Mafia Wars 2, and Petville (the latter had more than one million users at its peak.)

We’ve seen Zynga struggle a bit throughout the year of 2012, and these changes (which the company’s CEO said was all “standard restructuring”) may indicate that company will have future problems in 2013. While Zynga made some bold acquisitions last year, including Draw Something and Words With Friends, it has also been plagued by financial issues.

Zynga will have to step up its game in the new year if it expects to stay at the top in the world of social gaming.

Apple seems to have dropped the prices on its 2011 refurbished Mac Minis, as reflected by new prices listed on Apple.com. The 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 Mac Mini with 2GB of RAM is now selling for $469, down $50 from its earlier price of $519. Additionally, the refurbished 2.5 GHz Mac Mini with 4GB RAM now goes for $549, down from its earlier price of $699.

The Mac Mini is a good alternative for those who are looking for a Mac, but maybe cannot afford Apple’s traditional Macs, which usually start at around $1000. For about half the price, you can get a Mac “box” that you can hook up an external monitor to, and enjoy the Mac operating system pretty much the same way you would see it on an iMac or Macbook.

You can get the refurbished Mac Mini at Apple’s online store, here.

A few weeks from the time of writing this post, I was having some problems with the trackpad on my 2009 Macbook Pro. To put it simply, the mouse cursor on the screen was not following the movements on my finger on the trackpad, and would often jump around, activating my hot corners and whatnot. A simple restart didn’t fix the problem either, although controlling the cursor with my standard Logitech mouse still worked fine. In this situation, I began hunting around for a way to disable the trackpad while maintaining use of my mouse, hoping that this would solve the problem. Here’s how you can do it.

Luckily, this little-known feature is actually built right into the Mac OS X operating system, although many people might not realize that it even exists, and all it takes is some tweaking in the System Preferences app.

Step 1: Open up the System Preferences app on your Mac and click on the “Universal Access” button.

Step 2: Click on the “Mouse & Trackpad” tab.

Step 3: Click on the “Trackpad Options” button.

Step 4: From here, you’ll be able to toggle whether you would like disable or enable the trackpad when an external mouse (or trackpad) is plugged in. (screenshot below)

In the end, this did end up solving my trackpad malfunction, and although the trackpad is still non-functional, at least I can still fully manipulate my Macbook Pro using my mouse. Hopefully this will help someone else out, in case they’re having the same problem as I did, or simply wish to (for whatever reason) disable their trackpad.

This holiday season and in the holiday seasons of years past, we’ve seen developers promoting their apps primarily through discounted prices, with a few developers even giving away some of their most popular titles for free, in hopes of achieving a greater number of app downloads. While the holidays this year brought a spike in app downloads (as was expected), it may be interesting to note that this year’s jump in downloads is nowhere near what we’ve seen in years past.

According to a report by app analytic website Dismoto,

The 2012 daily download figures in the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone increased by 87% on Christmas Day compared to the December 2012 average, and moreover, the revenues showed an slightly lower increase of 70%.

However, this jump falls short when we compare it with last year’s numbers. During Christmas day 2011, we saw that app downloads jumped a whopping 230%, making this year’s 87% pale in comparison. What does this mean? Most likely we can expect fewer promotions in the future, as developers on average probably didn’t see the download numbers as high as they were last year. However, we’re sure that they’ll also be thinking of new ways to promote their products throughout the holiday season.

To celebrate the holidays in 2012, many popular App Store game developers have put some of their most acclaimed apps on sale for a limited time. Game producers such as Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Sega, and more all have reduced the prices on their titles. Check out some of the great deals they have in store for you below.

Gameloft

The following titles have all been reduced in price, too 99 cents for a limited time:

The Dark Knight Rises ™

Developer: Gameloft
Price: $6.99

Gangstar Rio: City of Saints

Developer: Gameloft
Price: $4.99

N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance

Developer: Gameloft
Price: $6.99

Electronic Arts

EA has put more than 50 of their titles on sale at only 99 cents apiece. Here are some of their most popular games:

FIFA SOCCER 13 by EA SPORTS

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $4.99

MASS EFFECT™ INFILTRATOR

Developer: Electronic Arts Inc.
Price: $4.99

Real Racing 2

Developer: Firemint Pty Ltd
Price: $4.99

You can check out EA’s full catalog of iOS titles here.

Sega

Sonic The Hedgehog 4™ Episode II

Developer: Sega America
Price: $4.99

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

Developer: Sega America
Price: $1.99

More of Sega’s on sale titles can be found here.

To make your holiday season a little more interesting, we’d like to share with you a few videos from Simon Pierro, a popular YouTube magician who incorporates technology with magic tricks! For the holiday season, he’s put up a variety of videos featuring magic tricks done with the iPad. They’re definitely work checking out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can view more of his videos on his YouTube channel, iOSmagic.

A recent report from Japanese tech blog Macotakara hints that a new 5th generation iPad could be released as early as March of 2013, just about 5 months after the 4th generation iPad was released this November. The new iPad is supposedly thinner and lighter than the previous generation iPads.

According to my inside source, iPad(5th) may be released in March, 2013. Source told that, design of this new iPad will be like iPad mini in detail, and be thinner and lightweight. (The expectation comes to have a small 4mm in height, 17mm in width, depth 2mm).

Apple is also rumored to be working on a second generation iPad mini, which, unsurprisingly, will sport a retina display, along with some expected performance improvements. We’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available. The rapid rate that these devices will be released shows how fast paced the tablet market is moving right now, but may also have a negative impact on Apple as customers may be unsure as to how long their “latest generation” iDevice will stay the latest generation.

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A report from Appsfire, an online app discovery tool, has interesting news as to how moneymaking in the App Store is working in 2012. Their in-depth infographic covering app store trends (available here) offers readers a plethora of interesting statistics, but what’s really interesting to point out is that only 34% of the apps released in 2012 were actually paid apps.

What does this mean? Perhaps the most significant implication is that apps are shifting over towards the “freemium” business model, in which apps are free to download, but offer in-app purchases to unlock in-game content. It is highly doubtful that less developers are going into the app store with the intention of making money, but rather their methodology has changed throughout the five years since the App Store was first introduced.

We’ve seen the freemium model work for games on a variety of platforms, including the web (Facebook games such as Farmville and Zynga Poker), downloaded games (League of Legends, a popular MOBA game for Windows), and now iOS (game such as Temple Run). By offering users the ability to play a game (or at least a demo version) for free, and then fully unlocking content after the app has already been downloaded, developers are allowing potential customers to first try out the app without ever having them re-visit the App Store to download the full version.

What are your thoughts as to this new 2012 App Store trend? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Apple officially released iOS 6.0.2 today for iPhone 5 and iPad mini. The sole purpose of this release seems to be fixing a potential bug for the two aforementioned devices that could impact Wifi usage. You can download this update straight from your iOS device through the software update section of the Settings app.

We’re not exactly sure as to the exact issue with Wifi on the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, but anyways, if you own either of the devices and check your software update, iOS 6.0.2 should be available for download and installation.

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For today only, Halfbrick Studios, one of the most popular casual game developers for the iOS platform, is offering all of their titles for free. The most popular game among their released works, Fruit Ninja, has constantly been in and out of the top 10 paid iPhone apps. Additionally, their titles also include Monster Dash and Jetpack Joyride.

Get all of their paid apps for free today only. Download links below:

Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: $0.99

Jetpack Joyride

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: free

Fruit Ninja

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: $0.99

Monster Dash

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: $0.99

Age of Zombies™

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: $0.99

Blast Off

Developer: Halfbrick
Price: $0.99

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With the release of iTunes 11 just a few days ago, Apple has reintroduced a quite useful feature to their popular media manager, giving users the ability to look for duplicate items in their media library. This feature was left out when iTunes 10 updated to iTunes 11, but now it seems Apple has seen fit to restore this functionality. Previously, many third party apps offered the ability to look for duplicates in your iTunes library, but it’s nice that Apple has built this feature right into iTunes.

Here’s a screenshot showing you how to get it working:

You can show duplicates under the View menu, or by simply searching “show duplicate items” in the iTunes help box on the top of the screen. Either way, a list of duplicate items in your media library will quickly be displayed.

One of the classics that have been around on the iOS platform since forever is a dual-stick shooter called Minigore, in which you controlled your character using two joysticks, shooting at the never ending waves of zombies that came for your head. After what seems like forever, Mountain Sheep, the developers behind the popular casual iOS game, have released a sequel, Minigore 2.

The new sequel features epic boss fights, new weapons, more zombies, and what seems to be a sort of level-based system instead of the endless survival mode that was seen in the original Minigore. We’ll be playing the game and giving you our take on it soon.

Read our take on the original Minigore here. Purchase Minigore or Minigore 2 from the iTunes links below:

Minigore

Developer: Chillingo Ltd
Price: $0.99

Minigore 2: Zombies

Developer: Mountain Sheep
Price: $0.99

As part of their Black Friday sale, popular retailer Best Buy is offering a discount on the 32 GB model of the 5th Generation iPod Touch. Normally priced at $299.99, you can now get the latest iPod Touch, as well as a $50 Best Buy gift card, for $294.99. Essentially, this brings the price tag down $55, to $244.99. The price tag is the same regardless of the color you want the iPod Touch to be.

Check out the deal here.

Check out the online classic iPod emulator here.

As a tribute to Steve Jobs, Inventika Solutions, an online creative media company, has developed a fully functional HTML version of the original iPod that was released all the way back in 2000. It was this original creation that spurred Apple forward in developing the iPhone, combining phone functionality with the iPod music player, revolutionizing the way all smartphone would be developed in the future.

You can interact with the online iPod (which comes stocked with a few songs) by dragging your mouse across the click wheel and clicking on the buttons provided in the interface.

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