Once a company starts making advertisements for a product, more than likely, they’re going to carry it. And Verizon is rumored to be making lots of sexy ads for the iPhone, which probably feature Verizon’s infamous coverage map and something along the lines of, “The iPhone. Now in More places.” Ads firm Landor Associates also calls the next iPhone, “the iPhone HD.” So folks, we’ve only got a month until WWDC, and hopefully we’ll be filled in with Apple’s next move in the smartphone marketplace.

[9 to 5 Mac via CrunchGear]

If you’ve ever heard about Square Mobile, they’re offering one of the coolest payment systems I’ve seen in a while. Take a white plastic cube, slip it in to your iPhone, iPod touch, or Android device’s headphone jack, swipe your card, and Square takes care of the rest. Without need for a merchant account or expensive fees, Square is something I’d love to implement somehow - it’s going completely online sometime this week (previously, its availability was limited). Check out the video after the break.

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While I generally wouldn’t talk about the possible triumphs of Android on an Apple site, I have to rightfully follow up with this little piece that happens to mention Adobe’s failtastic display of Flash. Deep in the labs of the Adobe underworld, that infamous Nexus One is finally running flash. Personally, I’m intrigued by how they went solving interactions between the browser and flash content - you have to initiate flash content through a gesture.

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While AT&T won’t let iPhone owners in the States tether their MacBooks to their iPhones, Apple has been tethered to AT&T for quite a while now. Apple’s contact with AT&T is rumored to last five years, meaning we won’t see anything happening with Verizon for a while. But here’s the kicker: Apple & AT&T may have accidentally invalidated this contact by informing customers that their contact was only exclusive for two years, and had to sign up for an additional three years to keep using the iPhone. Ooops.

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I love linux distros. Being fond of the recently released Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (which has replaced Windows XP on my aging Compaq desktop), Unity looks like an excellent Netbook OS for those who still want the Mac “touch and feel” without the mess or performance of Windows 7 Starter or XP editions. For all you netbook toting users who want to run Snow Leopard but can’t, hopefully we’ll start seeing machines soon sporting this nifty, lightweight OS.

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Usually I’m Gung Ho for anything Apple does, but after shafting Mac developers from the Apple Design Awards, I felt that Apple had removed an important element from the community. Ars Technica apparently feels the same, and will host their own Ars Design Awards specifically for those developing for OS X. Apple, if you aren’t going to recognize great developers and designers for their work, somebody else will.

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9to5 Mac reported earlier this morning that Android’s market share is surpassing Apple’s iPhone according to the NPD Group. Suggesting that Android holds 28% of the smartphone market compared to the iPhone’s measly 21%, things are looking great for Google and friends right? Well considering the iPhone is only on one carrier in the United States (and produced by a single manufacturer), compared to the four big carriers Android is on and multiple manufacturers, why hasn’t Android captivated more than 30% of the marketplace? Heck, they should be up there with RIM by now if their phones were really that good.

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Authors looking to publish their books through Lulu can now get their books in Apple’s iBookstore. Basically, Apple takes 30% from each sale. From whatever’s left, Lulu takes 20% and you get to keep the leftovers. That’s not too bad if you can manage to sell a thousand or so books, and being someone whose considering writing some epic novels of his own, I’d be happy to have Lulu distribute my works.

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