This Week's Sponsor:

TRMNL

The E-ink Companion For Your Favorite Tools

Apple Tweaks Online Store With “Popular Configurations”

As noted by TUAW , Apple silently updated the online Store to introduce a neat little feature: popular configurations for Macs. Just right ahead of Christmas, Apple is now showcasing popular setups such as “MacBook with larger hard drive” or “MacBook with more RAM” to make it easy for people to get around specs and “build the system of their dreams” (actual words from the Apple Store).

I think this is a very welcome new feature in the Store which will surely help the less tech-savvy wanna-be Apple users get the most out of their computers, and wallets. Not everyone knows what HDD 320GB 5200 rpm means, MacBook “with larger hard drive” just sounds better. Typical Apple move to streamline the experience, if you ask me.

Check out the new Configure page here.

Verbs For IM Launches But It’s Not Quite There

It’s not every day that a beautiful, elegant, new app comes out on the iPhone and I’m willing to spend $2.99 to purchase it. When I saw Verbs available in iTunes a few minutes ago, though, I couldn’t help but play Apple’s game and hit the Buy button. I wanted Verbs, for a reason: I know the first version wouldn’t support AIM, the chat system I use on a daily basis in iChat, but I really wanted to see how a nice Google Talk client would fit in my workflow. After all, it’s not every day that a Google Talk client for the iPhone is released, and it’s even got a UI to lay your eyes on.

So I bought Verbs. Is it beautiful to look at? It sure is. Is the ultimate Google Talk experience? More on that below. Read more

Airfoil 4 Streamlines Audio, Video Experience

Apple may have introduced AirPlay, but that doesn’t mean Rogue Amoeba is out of the game. In fact, AirPlay is rather limited unless you enjoy hacking your way out of a paper bag, and by no means can it expand its territory outside of iTunes. If you ever wanted to sit back on the couch and watch CNET TV on your 27” Cinema Display through your iPod’s headphones, you’re out of luck. But with Airfoil, streaming audio anywhere allows one to achieve a state of wireless bliss.

Read more

Sony Announces Official PlayStation App Coming To The iPhone

Good news, PlayStation fans and Marcus aficionados: there’s an official PlayStation app coming soon to an iPhone near you. As Sony reveals on the official European PlayStation Blog, the app will be available soon for iPhones and iPod touches running iOS 4 and Android devices running 1.6 and above.

The app will let you check on the PSN for your trophies and friends’ status updates, read news about games and hardware for PS devices, get the latest updates from the official PlayStation Blog. It will also have Facebook and Twitter sharing built-in.

The first version of the app will be released in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and The Netherlands. The next version, already in the works, will support more countries and languages.

If you’re looking for something more than a simple app to check on the PlayStation Network, the PlayStation Phone is still real.

The iPad: 50,000 Apps In 8 Months

The iPad was released on April 3rd in the United States. That was 257 days ago. The iPad App Store, launched on the same day, now has over 50,000 apps. It’s got 51,295 apps to be exact, at the moment of writing this. It only took 8 months for Apple to reach this milestone, but it’s been kind of an unstoppable growth.

In the past months, in fact, we have seen how the iPad App Store was growing to accommodate more apps every month. 10,000 apps in June. 20,000 apps in August. Then, more than 40,000 apps only 24 days ago, when iOS 4.2 was released to the public. We can argue that the App Store (for iPad and iPhone) is increasingly becoming a place for games, rather than standard “apps”, but still – these are the numbers. And even if using and getting a device to fit in our daily lives has really nothing to do with numbers, this is an achievement Apple is going to rely on for months to come.

50,000 apps available for the iPad isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Thinking about the Mac apps ready to go on sale in another App Store.

Acapella Group Rocks Out Madonna With iPads [Video]

Finnish acapella group Viisi got their hands (literally) on some iPads and thought it’d be nice to rock out some tunes with the tablets. After all, it’s not that the Internet hasn’t seen examples of Apple’s iDevices music before. The result, as you can guess, it’s pretty sweet.

The group made a cover of Madonna’s Material Girl using their voices to create harmonies (the main concept behind acapella performances) and ran a bunch of iPads as background instruments. I can spot a few pianos apps in there.

Check out the video below. [via TUAW]

Microsoft Launches Revamped Bing App for iPhone

A few hours ago the official Bing app for iPhone received a major update, which brings it to version 2.0 and introduces a lot of new (and nice) features I’m sure will make several iOS users reconsider Microsoft’s search engine app.

Bing 2.0 comes with new sharing possibilities and deeper integration with Facebook, Foursquare and Windows Live Messenger. You can check in without leaving Bing and even check on Facebook Likes in search results. While I’m not sure about the usefulness of “liking” a search results, it’s nice to see Microsoft committed to making the search engine more “social”. Perhaps it’s not the right path to follow, but at least something’s moving. Overall, the app’s layout has been slightly tweaked and improved to make room for a cleaner design and more intuitive navigation. Yes, it feels even more Metro than before – not sure if this is the right approach on iOS but again, Microsoft’s trying to keep its brand identity consistent across platforms.

The new Bing app also makes it easy and quick to find restaurants and theaters. The new Plans feature (again, with Facebook integration) lets you plan a night out with just a few taps.

The biggest addition to the iPhone client is what Microsoft calls Bing Streetside. Similar to Google’s StreetView but really geared towards simplicity and multi-touch gestures, Streetside enables you to know more about a specific location before visiting it. You can pinch and zoom and get a better visual of the neighborhood, tap to focus on the details and see overlays of business listings and store fronts.

Bing 2.0 is available for free here. Check out the full changelog and video (courtesy of Engadget) below. Read more

Meet The First iPhone 5…Clone

Is there anything better than waking up to find out that Apple has announced the grand opening of the Mac App Store? How about an iPhone 5?

Easy, folks. It’s a clone. Demoed in a video in Chinese, Taiwanese, or something. Whatever. Still, as 9to5mac suggests, the thing is probably running Android with some custom iPhone skin on it, so you don’t have to worry about this being a real iPhone with a different case. The truth is, someone actually took the time to imagine his own iPhone 5 and build it.

I don’t know if the device it’s up for sale. What I’m sure of is, I don’t want the iPhone 5 to look like this. Video below.[via] Read more