Welcome to the future, where your iPhone merges with your wallet…. You can now buy anything at Starbucks with your iPhone (or iPod touch), thanks to the Starbucks Card Mobile app. The app works by linking to a Starbucks gift card account, and when the app is launched it displays a barcode that can be scanned by the barista, making for a quick transaction.

Starbucks Card Mobile not only lets you pay directly from the app, but you can also check your account balance, view transaction history, reload your account with a credit card or paypal, track your rewards, and even locate nearby store locations. Whatever you feel about Starbucks, you have to admit this is a great idea.

Starbucks Card Mobile is a free download via the iTunes App Store and works on the iPhone and iPod touch. At this time, only US based cards and stores are supported, but this is expected to change soon.

AirView is a great new app that lets you stream any AirPlay video from one iOS device to another, or even stream from iTunes to an iOS device. AirView does this by accessing the AirPlay feature in iOS 4.2 to essentially turn any iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into an AirPlay receiver. This lets you send video to just about anywhere as long as the devices are on the same wireless network.

So, do you want to stream a video from your iPhone to your friends iPod touch? No problem. Want to stream a video from iTunes on your Mac or PC to your iPad so you can watch it in another room? No problem. This feature is cool enough that you’d expect Apple to release it as part of an upcoming iOS version… we hope.

AirView is a free download via the iTunes Store, it works with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad as long as they are running iOS 4.2 or later.

You can add blank spacers to the Mac OS X Dock by issuing a defaults write command in the Terminal, you can see the effect in the screenshot above with the space between the Firefox icon and iChat icon.

To get a spacer paste the following command into the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

You then must kill and relaunch the Dock to have the spacers appear, you can do this with the following command:

killall Dock

If you want multiple spacers, just issue the defaults write command the same number of times. Instead of repasting the command, you can do this by hitting the “Up” arrow on your keyboard within the Terminal to bring up the previously executed commands, just hit UP until you see the defaults write string and then hit return again.

The Dock spacers can be moved by simply dragging them around the Dock like any other icon. Likewise, you can remove the spacers by simply dragging them out of the Dock.

Thanks for the tip TJ!

Apple has publicly announced the white iPhone 4 release date will be Spring of this year, but if recent Best Buy inventory is to be believed, we may be seeing the elusive white iPhone 4 sooner.

The image above comes from MacRumors, which shows an alleged Best Buy inventory screen displaying the White iPhone 4 16GB and 32GB models with an availability date of 2/27/2011.

There is no word on whether the white iPhone 4 will be available to both Verizon and AT&T networks.

I recently published a guide on how to disable the Apple Remote Control, and one of our readers wrote in with a good prank that demonstrates why you’d want to turn off the remote or at least pair one to your specific Mac:

Want to know why you should turn off the Apple Remote? Try this: grab an Apple Remote Control and head to a place with a lot of Macs in a single room, like a school library, coffee shop, etc. Now aim the Apple remote in the direction of the Macs and start pressing buttons. Since most users never disable the remote, you can basically hijack their computer as Mac OS X will begin to launch Front Row. Just keep hitting play and you’ll end up activating their iTunes media, start playing songs, videos, etc, all from the remote. People end up dumbfounded as their computer suddenly has a life of it’s own. The only defense against this prank? Pair or turn off the remote.

I tried this out with my MacBook Pro next to a few others, and without pairing the remote this does work exactly as suggested, all machines will launch Front Row in unison, which can then play your iTunes media library. If you repeatedly hit “play” you’ll access whatever movie is at the top of their Movies playlist or directory. This is definitely an amusing prank albeit a very annoying one if you’re on the receiving end of it.

Another one of our readers mentions that in his IT group they disable the feature because “anything that can launch programs without strict user approval needs to be turned off”, suggesting the remote could be a potential security risk.

So now that we’ve had our fun, unless you use the remote for a Mac media center (in which case you should pair it), you might want to disable the thing.

Lock your Mac Screen

The absolute fastest and easiest way to lock the screen in Mac OS X is with a simple keyboard shortcut: Control+Shift+Eject

Hit that key combination and your Mac screen will go dark. This also locks the Mac screen, requiring a user to enter a password before the Mac can be accessed again… if you have the setting enabled.

If you don’t have the feature enabled, here’s how to set this up on any Mac:

Enable the Lock Screen in Mac OS X

This will cause the above keyboard shortcut to lock the screen with a password:

• Launch System Preferences
• Click on “Security” and look under the “General” tab
• Click the checkbox next to “Require password after sleep or screen saver begins” – select either immediately or 5 seconds as the time interval
• Exit out of System Preferences

The Mac OS X lock screen is the same as what you see when you wake a Mac from sleep or a screensaver when this feature is enabled, so remember that if you use a screensaver that auto-activates or sleep your Mac regularly, you’ll also be entering your password.

This feature is highly recommended to enable in offices, schools, and any other environment where you may have sensitive data on your Mac that you want to keep from prying eyes.

If you happen to forget your Mac password, you can reset it through a few different methods.

If you’ve ever wondered what your spending habits and expenses on the iTunes App Store have been, check out this free app from iOS developer WetFish. Appropriately named App Store Expense Monitor keeps a tab on all your iTunes App Store downloads and purchases and gathers them in an easy to sort app, the expenses can then be exported as either a CSV file or XML file for use elsewhere.

The only flaw I’ve found is that it doesn’t accurately capture all app purchases, in particular if you got an app during a special promotion either at discount or free. The reason for this likely being that the Mac OS X app gathers iPhone purchase data from your iTunes folder rather than your iTunes account. For my iTunes purchases, it labeled some free apps as purchased, and some purchased apps as free, but I also have gone through several different Mac OS X installations with this iPhone so I’m not terribly surprised that not all of the data is accurate since it’s pulling the information from the local iTunes directory. App Store Expense Monitor does let you edit the price data manually though, so if you want to correct the information it’s easy to do.

Despite it’s few flaws, the app is still useful, so if you need a way to track your App Store purchases, the App Store Expense Monitor gets the job done. You can grab it for free from WetFish Software.

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is going on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. Here is the email that Steve sent to his fellow Apple employees regarding the matter:

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

It should be noted that Steve Jobs took a similar medical leave in January of 2009 before returning to Apple roughly 6 months later.

Get well soon Steve!

You can set FaceTime to automatically accept incoming FaceTime calls from approved phone numbers or email addresses. You’ll need to have FaceTime for Mac installed, and then use the Terminal and the defaults command:

Auto-accept FaceTime calls from a specified email:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add email@address.com

Auto-accept FaceTime calls from a specified phone number:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add +14085551212

Make sure the string is all contained in one command on one line.

You can add as many pre-screened email addresses and phone numbers that you’d like (Obviously this only works in Mac OS X).

This is a neat trick that I was trying to figure out how to do on my own when I stumbled on a post from a computer repair company amusingly named CornDog Computers. Apparently they were writing an application that would automatically answer calls when they discovered you can do it manually through the defaults command.

When an update is available for any apps installed through the Mac App Store, you will see the “Updates” icon light up blue and have a number on it, signifying the number of software updates that are available.

Install and Update Apps in the Mac App Store

• Click on the “Updates” icon if it is glowing blue
• To update all apps, click on the “Update All” button
• To update individual apps, click on the “Update” button next to the individual app name
• Let the App Store download and install the updates

Remember, this only updates apps that have been installed through the Mac App Store, if you have apps that were installed from another source they will not be listed in the updates list regardless of how old their version is.

This is obviously a beginner tip, but as the resident “Mac guy” in the family, I was just asked how to do this, so hopefully this helps someone else too.

Troubleshooting “Sign in to (null) to update applications for that account”
If you get the “Sign in to (null)” message when trying to update an app, simply delete the app from your applications folder and redownload it from the Mac App Store by clicking the “Install” button. This is a bug in the Mac App Store and there is no need to sign into any other account.