If you rely on an iPhone alarm clock to wake up in the morning, pay attention: your alarm will not sound after New Years Eve. MacRumors says:

Apparently a bug in the iPhone clock app prevents non-recurring alarms from properly triggering on New Years day. I was able to confirm this after a couple of false starts. For the bug to show itself, your iOS device must actually tick over from 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2010 to 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2011.

They also say the bug will resolve itself after January 3rd for no apparent reason. Presumably this bug effects all iOS devices and not just the iPhone, so if you use your iPod touch or iPad as an alarm clock this will likely effect you as well. So what are you to do? There’s a fix, sort of:

Fix for the iPhone Alarm New Years Bug

The fix is easy and similar to the iPhone daylight Savings Time bug that surfaced earlier in the year: simply set up a new alarm as a recurring event (ie: make sure the alarm is scheduled for every day), this is said to cause the alarm clock to active as intended.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Update 1/1/11: MacWorld is reporting that Apple is aware of the problem and has offered the following information:

“We’re aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3.”

So, if you need an alarm tomorrow, set a recurring alarm or use a backup and apparently things will be normal in time to return to work on Monday.

You probably know by now that you can zoom into anything in Mac OS X by holding down the Control key and then using the scroll wheel or a two-fingered forward swipe on the trackpad. You’ve also probably noticed that the more you zoom in, the blurrier things get because you’re zooming into anti-aliased graphics and text.

Toggle & Disable Anti-Aliasing in Mac OS X Zoom

You can disable and toggle the anti-aliasing within the Mac OS X Zoom feature by hitting Command+Option+\ after the zoom feature is activated. In other words, Control+Scroll to zoom, and then hit Command+Option+\ to toggle anti-aliasing.

Here’s before and after pictures of what text looks toggling the anti-aliasing:

And after, the text is much more crisp:

This effects all on-screen graphics, not just text.

Thanks to Marcus for sending this in!

Did you know that you can re-open closed Safari tabs by hitting Command+Z? The classic ‘undo’ keyboard shortcut doubles as a history button of sorts in Safari, letting you reopen closed windows and tabs with a keystroke. Try it out.

Would you believe this isn’t a real iPhone 4? This freakishly accurate counterfeit is called the SoPhone, and the enclosure is so precise that it fits into all existing iPhone 4 cases. Not only does the outside look identical to the iPhone 4, it’s apparently running a customized version of Android that is themed to look and feel practically identical to iOS.

Perhaps the only thing that gives this away as a counterfeit is the screen resolution, which at 480×320 is the same resolution as the iPhone 3GS and not the real iPhone 4′s 960×640 retina display. Oh, and the price of course, which at $225 is about $500 cheaper than what a ‘real’ iPhone 4 will set you back on the Chinese grey market.

So remember those white iPhone 4′s for sale all over China? Yea, you might want to skip those since the chance of getting your hands on a real one is likely slim…

More pictures of the phone, UI, and a video of it in use next to a legit iPhone 4 below:
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Amazon has just released their “Best of 2010″ list, and sitting right at the top of their bestselling computer list is the MacBook Pro 13″. Apple’s popular laptop also grabbed the number one spot for the “Most Wished For” computer of the year.

I’m not surprised at all to see the MacBook Pro take this position, I have the 13″ model and it’s a great machine. Earlier in the year I went ahead and upgraded the MacBook Pro to 8GB RAM and I’d love to get an SSD drive after seeing this video of the performance boost. These kind of upgrades squeeze even more performance out of an already stellar laptop.

Anyway, back to the official accolades… if you’re curious, here’s the press release from Amazon:
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Update: Redsn0w 0.9.7b5 download is now available, this new version adds Bluetooth support.

Redsn0w 0.9.7b4 is now available to download, marking the fourth beta release of the iOS 4.2.1 untethered jailbreak. This version is significant in that it no longer requires the use of the usbmux command line tool, making the jailbreak process less complicated. It’s important to note that bluetooth continues to be disabled, and there are also issues with Skype.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.7b4

The download is available below:

• Download now (Mac only)

Currently for Mac OS X only, Redsn0w 0.9.7b4 continues to require 4.2b3 SHSH blobs and works with iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch 4G. The iPhone Dev Team anticipates a Windows beta release of the untethered redsn0w jailbreak to be available in the near future, assuming the current Mac beta goes smoothly.

As usual, the Dev Team recommends restoring your existing iOS hardware before jailbreaking with the latest redsn0w version.

In the market for a iPhone or iPod speaker dock? Amazon has one as part of their daily lightning deals, selling the $199 Altec Lansing inMotion for iPod and iPhone for just $62.99 with free shipping.

Check out Amazon Gold Box Lightning Deals to grab the hugely discounted price. There’s only three hours left and as of writing 25% have been sold already, so you’ll have to move quickly if you want one.

I have a different iPhone speaker dock system and I’ve been really happy with it, they’re definitely a great accessory for an iPhone or iPod touch.

Wondering just how fast the Momentus XT SSD Hybrid drive is? Check out this video of an older 2009 MacBook model that compares performance of the stock 5400 RPM drive and the Momentus XT Hybrid. In the video, the MacBook with the Momentus XT cold boots and launches Photoshop CS4 in just 26.5 seconds, while the stock 5400 RPM drive takes 43 seconds to complete the same task.

Getting an ultrafast hard drive and maxing out the RAM are great ways to get the best performance out of Mac hardware. If your Mac could use a speed boost, it’s certainly worth considering the upgrades as they are far more cost effective than buying a whole new Mac.

The Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB SSD Hybrid is $119.99 and includes free shipping from Amazon. There are also 320GB and 250GB versions available, but they’re only marginally cheaper ($10) which makes the 500GB model by far the best deal.

The latest version of Skype for iOS brings video chat and video calling to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. You can make direct video calls to other iOS clients in addition to Mac OS X and Windows Skype clients.

What makes the new version even more exciting is that you can make Skype video calls over 3G in addition to WiFi, making it the first official method of making 3G video calls without jailbreaking an iPhone.

Two-way video calling is supported on the following hardware: iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 4G. Note that the iPhone 3GS will use the rear camera for video calls. The current iPad and iPod touch 3G can receive video calls, but since they are lacking a camera they can not send video.

The new version of Skype 3.0 requires iOS 4.0 or later, and is a free download from iTunes.

Everyones heard one of those songs thats good up until a point, and then an annoying outro plays. Wouldn’t it be nice to just skip that part of the song automatically? Well you can using iTunes, just set it once and you’ll be able to prevent the outro of a song from ever playing again.

Stop a Song Outro From Playing in iTunes

This works in all new versions of iTunes:

• Note the time in the song when the outro begins
• Right-click on the song in iTunes and select “Get Info”
• Click on “Options”
• Check the box next to “Stop Time” and enter the time the outro begins
• Click “OK”

Now anytime you play the song, the song will end at the time you specified, skipping the outro. This does not permanently alter the song, it just stops the audio from playing beyond that point in iTunes only. You can get the outro back by unchecking the ‘Stop Time’ box.