The latest iPad commercial starts off with the turntable DJay app scratching the now widely known iPad commercial song “Never Stop” by Chilly Gonzales, followed by more apps and words: fresh, tickets, news, stories, 60,000+ apps, students, teachers, hollywood, iconic. Finally, the commercial ends with Marilyn Monroe on Vanity Fair magazine as seen on the iPad.

This fits nicely into the line-up of other iPad commercials, and it’s unmistakably Apple.

Remember that wireless hotspot feature of iOS 4.3 that everyone was so excited about? In order to use it, you’ll have to shell out an additional $20/month on top of your standard data plan to Verizon. Bummer. Although as some consolation, you’ll also get an extra 2GB of data allowance for the fee (which is useless in the face of the $30 unlimited data plan).

The $20 monthly fee was confirmed by Verizon to MacWorld. Remember, you can also just setup a iPhone Wireless hotspot on any jailbroken iPhone.

If you thought last weeks news that you can now buy Starbucks coffee with an iPhone was cool, this is even cooler. According to Bloomberg, iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will both feature “Near-Field Communications” technology that allows the devices to become a digital wallet. Thanks to the built-in NFC chip, your iPhone will be able to access credit cards, bank accounts, and gift card balances already on file with Apple, allowing you to make any purchase directly from the phone.

In terms of the timeline, Bloomberg says the technology is “due to be embedded in the next iteration of the iPhone for AT&T Inc. and the iPad 2″ and that “Both products are likely to be introduced this year… citing engineers who are working on hardware for the Apple project.”

Most rumors put the iPad 2 release in April and iPhone 5 in June, keeping in line with Apple’s past release schedules, but what about in-store infrastructure? According to the report, Apple has already created prototype NFC payment terminals that they may subsidize to encourage rapid nationwide adoption of the technology.

I’m wondering if the NFC data will be accessible for third party app developers, if so, this could completely change the face of mobile banking, transactions, gift cards, and so much more. Owe your friend $5? Imagine being able to send it directly to his bank account with a few taps on your phone. Consider this all a rumor for now, but hopefully Bloomberg is right about this one.

Hoping to further distance itself from rival AT&T, Verizon will offer an unlimited data plan for $30 to new iPhone 4 customers. This would make Verizon the only US carrier that offers unlimited data for the iPhone, since AT&T removed the unlimited plan in favor of a 2GB limit.

But there’s a catch; the unlimited data plan will only be available temporarily before all Verizon plans are moved onto a tiered data plan like AT&T’s, according to the Wall Street Journal. The pricing and data allowances of the tiered system are currently unknown.

It still remains to be seen what, if anything, Verizon and AT&T will charge to use the much desired wireless hotspot feature in iOS 4.3. Depending on the associated fees, it may be more cost effective to sign onto the unlimited data plan and then jailbreak the iPhone into a wireless hotspot.

If you’ve ever accidentally shut down your Mac you’re not alone, but did you know that you can stop the shut down process by quickly launching an app? This works best when you act quick, so just pick any app in your Dock and launch away. You’ll get an error message saying “The application ____ canceled shut down.” which completely halts the Mac OS X shutdown process.

Nice huh? Hats off to Lifehacker for the tip.

This deal is hot. For a limited time, you can buy a Crucial 8GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 SODIMM DDR3 RAM upgrade kit for $75 from Amazon, the price includes free shipping.

Crucial is widely considered to be one of the better brands of RAM on the market. This is an extraordinary deal for an 8GB RAM upgrade and without a doubt the cheapest price I’ve seen for such a kit. Part of the reason it’s so cheap is that there’s a $15 instant rebate that is valid on Amazon until 1/27/2011… in other words you have three days to get the low price.

• Crucial 8GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 DDR3 RAM Upgrade Kit – $75 with free shipping

For comparison, I paid $115 for 8GB just a few months ago, you can read my MacBook Pro 8GB RAM upgrade review if you missed it. In short, if you’re a power user or intense multi-tasker, you’ll really appreciate the extra memory.

The upgrade kit should work with any of the newer MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac Mini, and iMac models, but you’ll want to double-check that your Mac supports it. If you aren’t sure whether you’d benefit from more memory, check out Does my Mac need more RAM?

The latest iPhone 4 commercial shows off two iPhones using AT&T and Verizon side by side, to the tune of the famous song “The Blue Danube” waltz by Johann Strauss II. The commercial appropriately ends with a “Two is better than one” message, and some fine print reminding us that some features vary per carrier.

Both AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4 cost $200 with a two year contract, although if you’re buying the phone outright it’ll cost you $50 more at Verizon for some reason.

Colin Wheeler is a Cocoa Developer that has created a really handy XCode keyboard shortcut cheatsheet, it’s a great resource for anyone who is interested in improving their XCode workflow.

The file is way too large and detailed to give it an appropriate thumbnail here, so check it out directly:

• Direct link to (large) PDF

The cheatsheet is made available under the Creative Commons license, so you can do what you want with it as long as you include attribution.

Happy Birthday to the Mac! Apple introduced the very first Macintosh on January 24, 1984, beginning an era that is still going strong 27 years later.

Here are some fun facts about the first ever Mac, known as the Macintosh 128k:

• It ran Mac OS System 1.0 (if you’re already nostalgic you can run classic Mac OS on your iPhone today)
• It featured an 8 MHz processor, 128kb of RAM, 9″ black and white display with a 512×342 resolution, and a 3.5″ disk drive
• The base price started at $2,495, which is $5,095 in todays inflation adjusted dollars, an additional external disk drive was another $495
• The first Mac shipped with two pieces of software, MacWrite and MacPaint, these apps were chosen to emphasize the operating systems revolutionary Graphical User Interface
• Apple’s obsession with reducing hardware noise started at the very beginning, with the original Mac not including a fan in order to insure quiet operation
• The original Mac 128k was not considered to be upgradeable, any upgrades required an entirely new motherboard
• The Mac 128k had the signatures of Apple’s Macintosh division engraved on the inside of the case (see picture below)
• Although it was announced several months prior, most people first heard of the Mac upon airing of the now famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial (shown below)

These are the Macintosh teams signatures inside the Mac 128k case, Steve Jobs and Woz are included:
Read more »

Nobody knows for sure what features the iPad 2 will have, although a camera is almost certain. The rumormill is currently going both directions on this, some iPad 2 rumors suggest that it will have dual cameras, perhaps both HD, and others say it will be 1 megapixel like the latest generation iPod touch.

But while many want an HD camera on the iPad 2, this picture above shows why that might be impractical. Can you imagine people holding up the relatively large iPad to take pictures? Looks a little silly doesn’t it? This is obviously a joke, but it does make a valid point.

Thanks to Patrick for sending in the above image!