Update: This app was intended to be free only on 2/20 but it is now 2/21 2/22 and the app is still free to download. Get it while you can!

If you have a Mac media center pay attention, Mobile Mouse Pro turns your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into a fantastic remote control, and for today only the app is free to download!

Turn your iPhone & iPod touch into a full featured remote control
Mobile Mouse Pro is great because it gives you an application switcher, full trackpad support, full virtual keyboard access, ability to use the iPhone/iPod as media remote with play/pause/stop/volume adjustment, web remote, and so much more. Seriously this app is awesome, so grab it while you can for free. The other bonus? The app is cross platform compatible, so if your media center isn’t a Mac but a Windows PC, it will still work.

Download Mobile Mouse Pro from the iTunes App store – FREE for today only
The wireless remote app is free to download today only from the iTunes App Store.

• MobileMouse Pro for iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad – Free from the iTunes App Store

After you get the client for your iOS device, grab the free server software for your computer:
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More Mac OS X rumors! An Apple patent has surfaced that gives credence to the idea that the next version of Mac OS X 10.7 will feature some kind of cloud storage capability. Last summer OSXDaily speculated the next version of Mac OS X would feature some sort of cloud support, this was based on a job opening at Apple’s Mac OS X team that emphasized technologies that are critical to cloud support. Will Pearson described how the job opening related to the cloud:

The biggest hint in the job posting is the favoring of candidates who have experience developing with “internet technologies and services” and more tellingly “participated in or lead the architecture of large web scale systems” with HTTP protocol experience. This naturally leads to the assumption that Mac OS X 10.7 will indeed have Cloud features built into the foundation of the operating system. HTTP and XHTML5 are core elements in the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) spec and are integral parts in most existing cloud computing services and platforms. When you combine this knowledge with recent news that Apple is building a massive 500,000 square foot data center, there is little room left to wonder what Apple is up to.

Now, seven months later, PatentlyApple has discovered a patent that may describe just how last summers job opening and Mac OS X “revolutionary feature” could tie into Mac OS X Lion. Dubbed “Safe Deposit Box”, the newly patented Mac OS X feature describes a way for the operating system to store certain files off-site, safely in a cloud environment and accessible from anywhere. PatentlyApple suggests how this may relate to day-to-day users:

One of the key attributes or selling points of Apple’s Safe Deposit Box Application or OS X feature is that your digital valuables could be stored “off site” or beyond the home computer to safeguard your digital valuables which could be something like a Will or Living Will, agreements, life insurance policies, home insurance policies, a simple home inventory list or video or perhaps something that’s really valuable to most every iTunes fan: a copy of your iTunes Library.

The idea of an iTunes cloud and streaming has been popularized through, of all things, iPhone 5 & iPhone Mini and wireless syncing rumors, which have strongly suggested that wireless syncing and streaming of your iTunes library is coming via a future free version of MobileMe. This creates the obvious question; if your iPad and iPhone with iOS will wirelessly sync to MobileMe, why wouldn’t Mac OS X and your Mac hardware too? It’s just a patent, but it suggests cloud-based streaming and syncing might just make an appearance in a future version of Mac OS X, maybe even Mac OS X 10.7, which is due for release this summer.

Update: Even more evidence of a refresh, the existing MacBook Pro models have a 3-5 day shipping delay.

Yesterday Best Buy’s internal inventory started showing SKU’s for the MacBook Pro 2011 refresh, and now they’re appearing publicly on BestBuy.com. There aren’t any details or specs listed alongside the new units, just the SKU and price tag, which both match yesterdays info, strongly suggesting this is the MacBook Pro update.

We took a few screenshots since these will probably be pulled from BestBuy.com quickly.

The SKU’s and prices are as follows:

• SKU 1535918 – $2499
• SKU 1535845 – $2199
• SKU 1535836 – $1799
• SKU 9755395 – $1499
• SKU 9755322 – $1199

Each entry is listed generically as “APPLE COMPUTER INC. – New SKU” with “Details coming soon” in place of hardware specs.
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Every day there’s a new set of rumors around Apple products, yesterday it was about the new cheaper iPhone with wireless syncing and today it’s about the MacBook Pro 2011 refresh and iPad 3.

MacBook Pro 2011 refresh prices, launch due on Thursday, February 24?

Up until now the rumors of a MacBook Pro refresh have been mostly speculation, much based on the recent Intel ad that showed a nice looking Mac-like laptop. Now several rumor sites are claiming that the Thursday February 24 will be the release date (which just so happens to be Apple CEO Steve Jobs birthday).

Adding some credibility to this claim is that BestBuy is apparently showing the following new MacBook Pro SKU’s and prices in their inventory:

• MC724LL/A-SKU# 9755395 – $1499 – 13 inch
• MC700LL/A-SKU# 9755322 – $1199 – 13 inch
• MC725LL/A-SKU# 1535918 – $2499 – 17 inch
• MC723LL/A-SKU# 1535845 – $2199 – 15 inch
• MC721LL/A-SKU# 1535836 – $1799 – 15 inch

Assuming these numbers are accurate, the pricing for the 2011 MacBook Pro’s will be the same as existing models. Some have took this to suggest the 2011 refresh may not feature the dramatic redesign that has been hotly speculated about (including the cool mockup shown above out of Italy).
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With all the new tools like Twitter for Mac, it’s easy to forget that email is still a dominant form of communication online. I use Gmail constantly and I like to be alerted to new messages coming in without having a dedicated window open at all times, so with this in mind here are three options to get Gmail notifications onto your Mac desktop, plus a bonus usability tip that’s essential for any Mac webmail user.

1) GMail Desktop Notifier

I’ve been using the GMail Desktop Notifier client for Mac OS X for a long time, it’s simple, unobtrusive, and sits in your menubar. The Gmail icon defaults to black, but the icon highlights red when you have a new message, and a number appears next to the icon displaying how many new emails are available.

You can then click on the GMail icon to pull down and see an emails sender and subject. If you select an item through the menubar, Gmail will launch in the default web browser and open the message you selected. This is my top choice because of it’s simplicity.
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This Mac setup does a great job of showing the opposite ends of the Apple spectrum here, with the large 27″ iMac sitting next to the tiny MacBook Air 11″ and an even smaller iPad and iPhone. According to the images Flickr page, the glowing Apple logo box above the iMac is a custom creation. Round it all off with some wall mounted speakers, and you have a great Mac setup.

Finding a decent iPhone to video converter can be a pain, and finding one that the average person finds easy to use can be even worse. Thankfully along with the Mac App Store came Miro Video Converter, a practically foolproof and no frills video conversion utility that can convert just about any video file into an iPhone compatible format with the click of a button.

How to Convert Video to iPhone Format Free with Miro Converter

This is as easy as it gets:

• Download Miro Video Converter, it’s free from the Mac App Store (direct link)
• Launch Miro Video Converter
• Drag a movie file into the app
• Select your output type (I recommend “Apple Universal”)
• Click “Convert!”

The conversion is surprisingly quick, and the newly converted video file will appear in the same directory that the original source video was located. If you chose “Apple Universal” you’ll now have a MP4 file that can be brought onto your iPhone (or iPad, iPod touch, etc) and played hassle free.

The downside to apps like Miro is that the simplification takes away more advanced options that some users require. In that case and you want more control over the conversion and video quality, check out converting video to iOS formats with Handbrake. It’s also free to download and pretty easy to use, but has significantly more options like bitrate, frame rate, subtitle support, and more.

Update: Several commenters have suggested using Evom, which is a great utility we have discussed before in the context of converting YouTube videos to Mp3, it is also free.

The New York Times has apparently confirmed that Apple is working on a cheaper iPhone, aimed to broaden the devices appeal in the face of an increasingly competitive mobile landscape. The NYT also disputes some of the past claims regarding new iPhones from WSJ and Bloomberg, specifically that the cheaper device won’t be smaller than the existing iPhone 4.

Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.

More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.

This is interesting because the language specifically addresses the disadvantages of a smaller screen, to me this continues to suggest the new cheaper iPhone will use the same screen as the existing iPhone 4. Maybe this is a controlled leak to alleviate some of the concerns voiced in the developer community about working with another iOS screen resolution?

The New York Times also specifies that the new iPhone will be ready this summer, perhaps at the rumored date of WWDC 2011 and iPhone 5 launch.

Wireless Syncing via Free MobileMe
Finally, backing up prior reports, a new free version of MobileMe will also be released that allows for wireless syncing, according to the NYT:

“The goal is that your photos and other media content will eventually just sync across all your Apple devices without people having to do anything,”

Wireless syncing and easily accessible cloud storage have long been desired by the Apple community. The New York Times did not specify a timeline for the relaunch of MobileMe, but we assume it would be made available along with the new cheaper iPhone, iPhone 5, and a new version of iOS.

If the 80′s block iPhone case and Cathode Terminal weren’t reaching far enough back in time for you, maybe this will. Yes, hooked up to that iMac is a real typewriter, and yes, it actually works as a USB keyboard. This is the product of a rather ambitious hack, here’s how it works:

Under the hood of every typewriter is a springloaded crossbar that runs underneath all the keys. When a key is struck, part of that key pushes on the crossbar, and this causes the carriage to advance, the ink roll to move, and so on. We are going to repurpose this crossbar as a place to mount an array of metal contacts, which are attached to a long, narrow circuit board. This Sensor Board is wired up to the Interface Board, an Arduino clone that talks to the computer over USB.

A fair amount of supplies are needed, but Instructables claims it is “surprisingly easy to implement” if you have a weekend to devote to it. You can check out the guide on Instructables to build your own.

Thanks for sending this in Evan!

GreenPois0n RC6.1 has been released for iOS 4.2.1, the untethered jailbreak includes an update that resolves the iBooks DRM issue that caused some iOS jailbreakers from losing access to certain protected iBooks.

Download GreenPois0n RC6.1

Mac & Windows versions are currently available:

• Download Now (Mac)
• Download Now (Windows

Like the past GreenPois0n RC releases, RC6.1 includes support to jailbreaking iOS 4.2.1 on the following hardware:

• iPod Touch 2G, 3G, 4G
• iPad
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• Verizon iPhone 4 (iOS 4.2.6)
• Apple TV 2

Using RC6.1 is the same as past GreenPois0n RC releases, you can follow our how to guide on jailbreaking iOS 4.2.1 untethered with GreenPois0n or you can use iPad specific instructions.

If you require unlock and baseband preservation, you should use PwnageTool 4.2 instead.