MacBlender

If you’re a discerning eater, you know the age-old mantra: everything’s better with bacon. Out in Germany, they’ve really taken it to heart, and have made fabric gadget cases that look like they’re constructed out of every gentile’s favorite pork product. The Bacon Case seems to come in different sizes, at least one of which can fit the iPhone, and is selling for 25 Euro. The description’s all in German, and I don’t know what or who a “Frühstücksspeck” is, but the case is “Absolute Trendtasche!!!” and who am I to argue with that? More pictures after the jump.

[DaWanda]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

These “CupSpeakers” from designer Dmitry Zagga are MacGyverific. With nothing more than a large disposable drinking cup, a couple of toothpicks, and the included iPod earbuds, Zagga has constructed a sleek, cheap, and easy speaker system for his iPod. He claims the volume increase is “significant,” and his photography makes this self-aware DIY project look like something straight out of a Steve Jobs PowerPoint.

The toothpicks hold the cups together, and a small hole at the base of the top cup holds an earbud. The sound is magnified due to the shape of the cup, not any fancy-schmancy “electronics.” It may not compete with, you know, real speakers, but Dmitry’s got a good sense of humor about him and it looks like a fun project for the incredibly bored. [Yanko]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Out with the old, in with the new. Course, if you’re okay with the old, you can usually pick it up for cast-off prices. Like the previous-gen MacBook Air, which MacMall is dumping for $1150 after a $100 mail-in rebate with free shipping. To sweeten the deal, you also get Parallels for free after rebate. Not too shabby, especially considering that these are brand new, not refurbs. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) [MacMall via Tech Deal Digger]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

It’s been four months almost to the day since iPhone 2.0 came, and we’ve been hitting the App Store hard every week ever since to sift through what’s new in iPhone App land. This week, we’ve decided to hold back for a second, take a breath, and compile a different kind of list: the apps that many of us on staff actually use on a regular basis. If you have a new iPhone or iTouch just waiting to be filled up, or you feel like you may be missing some essentials in your collection, this is the list for you.

Pageonce Personal Assistant: Combines myriad online accounts, from banking and investing to bill paying to airline frequent fliers. Rather than hit 15 different sites for your montly bill pay/pain time, use this single app.

AOL Radio: Four letters: KCRW. AOL Radio pipes in the legendary LA station and for this we are thankful.

Fring: The only IM/messaing client you need. Covers Google Talk, AIM, Skype, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Twitter, plus VoIP calls over Wi-Fi if you’re low on minutes at home or in the coffee shop.

Remote: One of the first apps we saw, and still among the best in terms of usefulness. If you use iTunes frequently at home and especially if you listen away from your desk via a stereo hookup or Airport Express, you need the Remote.

AirSharing: Our favorite file storage app—shoots files to the iPhone’s flash memory via Wi-Fi for storage, transport, and easy retrieval.

Yelp: Taps into Yelp’s community reviews to find good bars and restaurants based on your location. Essential for cities like San Francisco and New York where Yelp reviews are solid. When I’m out in the city and need a drink ASAP or the restaurant I was planning on going is too crowded/sucks, Yelp is what I reach for.

Routesy: Can’t live in San Francisco without this app. I use it everyday to see when trains / busses are coming. Even if I am sitting at my computer I choose to look up the train / buss schedule via Routesy on my iPhone because it’s just that much simpler.

City Transit: Ditto here for NYC. Even for locals, quick access to a subway map is always a good thing, plus constantly changing service outages are impossible to keep track of, without an app like this. And if you’re feeling old-timey, a vintage MTA map is here too.

Pandora: Best internet radio app, hands down. Smartly auto-suggests music based on other artists you like. Both on the go and while at home. Streams well over EDGE and 3G. Free. What more could you ask for?

VNC Lite: View and fully control my computer from anywhere, as long as I am on the same network. So I can basically be at my computer without actually being at my computer…

PanoLab: Who knew multitouch is the perfect interface for stitching photos together into panoramas? It is. Plus if the photo you just took doesn’t work, toss it out and take another one immediately. A paid version adds even more features.

Bloom: Generative, ambient music by Brian Eno. If I need to say more, it’s also a mini-sequencer: Drop your finger on the liquidy pastel screen, play a note, make simple loops. Music For Airports that you can make yourself. In an airport, even.

Shazam: This just doesn’t get old: hold your phone to the air to grab the song playing at the supermarket (or being hummed by your friend), and have it identified in a few seconds. We live in a privileged age.

Simplify Media: Stream your home machine’s iTunes library and those of up to 30 friends to your phone. This app lives up to its name. Forget worries of filling up 8GB, or even 16.

Galcon: It’s Risk, but in space, and instead of six hours it takes two minutes and you don’t have to be shitfaced to enjoy it.

i.TV: Provides you with an elegant TV guide, movie listings and showtimes, and Netflix queue management all in one app.

MotionX Poker: The dice rolling in MotionX Poker is one of the most accurate and painstakingly simulated dice physics engines ever built. And it shows. Not a substitute for real dice behind your neighborhood bodega, but the closest thing possible.

Snow Reports: If you fait du ski/snowboard, Snow Reports will let you know when you should drop everything and head to Alpine Mountain for the weekend.

Google Earth: The same amazing Earth touring app found on the desktop, now spinnable via multi touch. Honestly if someone told me two years ago I would have a functional Google Earth app on my phone, I wouldn’t have believed them. This is now.

Sketches: Brian likes this app because deep down, he’s just a Japanese schoolgirl who wants to slap sticker graphics on photos of his dog. If you share this desire, Sketches: it’s for you too.

Have an app you can’t live without that didn’t make our list? Awesome! Tell us in the comments so everyone can check it out. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Google has created an app for the iPhone that will give the handset advanced voice recognition, reports John Markoff from the NY Times. The app can answer location related questions (Finding the nearest Starbucks), give driving directions, respond to generic questions, and even search local data from the address book.

It works by recording a soundbite, uploading it to Google’s servers, which will crunch the data and return an answer “within seconds on a fast wireless network”. Saul compared the function to that offered on Yahoo’s, and found Google’s to be more accurate, but still return junk results sometimes. AT&T and Microsoft also have handset voice recognition beyond simple dialing that many other phones offer. The app will be free and might be available to download as soon as Friday. [NYT]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Looks like the informed speculation was correct: Apple says that the LED 24-inch Cinema Display will ship within a week to ten days. Is it worth $899? That’s a personal life decision, son. [Apple via Electronista]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Apple might get a bit crazier than usual with their typically staid Black Friday deals, but Fry’s is offering a pretty great deal right now: $200 off the new MacBook, making it only $1099. You probably won’t see a better MacBook deal than that. Quantities are limited, so get crackin’. Update: Laaaaame. Fry’s says they borked they ad, it’s supposed to be the BlackBook. Also, San Jose only. [Mercury News - Thanks David!]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Time will tell whether or not it’s a repeat problem, but one tech editor found his out-of-warranty iPhone home button slowly failing to respond to the point where, rather than pay for repairs, he just bought a new phone. Depressed that he couldn’t open the phone himself and still keep it in functional shape, he decided the circumstances (and his nerves) called for an autopsy, along with a monumental retelling of the event.

Only after I had dismantled the motherboard, separated the screen and delicately pealed free the “home” button’s backplate from the adhesive that had affixed it to the machine’s front glass could I see what had disabled my iPhone.

Lint.

…Now, however, with the iPhone’s guts exposed to the world, a quick blast of compressed air cleared away the obstruction in a millisecond. The irony was inescapable—only when I had completely destroyed the iPhone could I fix it.

I don’t know that it’s a new phenomenon for gadgets to be unfixable, and it’s certainly not an Apple-exclusive problem either (though their design certainly doesn’t lend itself to easy user repair). But there is a certain, not so subtle irony that the better our tools work, the more our tools seem unable to fix one another. [PopMech]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Apple generally tends to merely dip its Designed in California toe into the Black Friday blackwaters, usually offering a one-day $100-off promotion on a single product family via online and in-store purchases. But analysts at Barclay Capital and the folks at Apple Insider are projecting bigger things this year, which could include more aggressive one-time prices slashes across multiple families (iPhone potentially included).

The evidence seems to be in line: Apple Insider points at Apple’s crazy-aggressive (for Apple) back-to-school promotion this year that offered a free iPod touch ($300 value) with a new notebook purchase (over previous years’ Nanos), and a general feeling in the air that Black Friday is going to be batshit crazy this year across the board. Also cited is Orange’s plan to slash iPhone prices by €50 for Noël in France—but take that with a bit more skepticism, because the international carriers have more lee-way over their localized pricing. So is this just stating the obvious? We shall see what happens. [Apple Insider]

From: Gizmodo: Apple

Apple has just released the 1.03 patch for the fourth generation iPod nano (that’s the new one, for those who may have lost count). The update adds support for the upcoming Apple in-ear headphones and tweaks CoverFlow functionality. Here’s the full list of updates:

• Support for Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic

• Support for Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic

• Fixed instability issues when using Nike + iPod Sport Kit

• Added a setting to turn off Cover Flow when rotating iPod nano and a Cover Flow menu item under the Music menu

• When Shuffle setting is set to Songs, pressing play on a song in a saved Genius playlist will now follow the Shuffle setting

• After playing a slideshow with TV out, Cover Flow album art is no longer distorted

• Waking iPod nano after hibernating no longer distorts photos

• Other minor bug fixes

[AppleInsider]

From: Gizmodo: Apple