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Your iPad case isn’t a boring accessory. It’s modern day armor, and it says as much about you as the breastplate strapped to the sinewy torso of any medieval warrior ever did. The sturdiness and thoroughness of its construction reveal your wisdom; its extravagant flourishes of design reveal your spirit and pomp. In the gouges, cracks and dents, you can trace the rigors of an entire life. Picking an iPad case is as much as to tell the world what kind of warrior you are.

So what kind of warrior is the person who picks the BlackBox Bamboo Case for iPad 2? He’s a samurai.

We think there’s little better than laying our fat mitts on the suddenly real version of something that’s, to that point, been fantasy — so you’ll excuse us if we go all giggly over the Hipstamatic app-themed new $40 HipstaCase 100 for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch.

An LTE-capable iPhone isn’t likely to be unveiled until 2012, but when it does, you may want to sign your contract with AT&T, as early test speed results show that Ma Bell’s LTE network might be up to six times faster than Verizon’s.

To celebrate Apple Retail’s tenth anniversary, Gary Allen just drove 3,200 miles, crossed 12 states, and burned 100 gallons of gas.

His destination?

Verizon’s Chief Financial Officer has confirmed that whenever the next iPhone debuts, it’ll be a true world phone, capable of operating on both CDMA and GSM networks with the same hardware. One handset to rule them all.

As Apple commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Apple Store retail launch, it’s fun to take a look back and see what things were like a decade ago. In the pre-launch video below from 2001, Steve Jobs gives us a walkthrough of Apple’s newest creation.

You will not buy this. You will not think it’s practical. You will not think it’s a good return on investment. But you will still lust and droll over Paula Anne Patterson’s gorgeous, retrotastic new Kickstarter project.

The professional photographer’s dream of using Aperture on the run with his iPad may finally be within reach.

On the day of Apple’s 10th Retail Store anniversary, not everyone’s celebrating: in fact, a small but vocal group of Apple Store employees is working hard even now to unionize in response to what they term unfair treatment and compensation.

Take a trip through this iPad-controlled abode – where the owners set the thermostat, spy on loved ones, set the alarm and watch movies thanks to Apple’s magical device.

More signs that your iPad may be the future of print. Online bookseller Amazon announced Thursday e-books are outselling paper versions. While the announcement focused on the Kindle, the news also gives reason for Apple to celebrate its own e-reading plans, including iBookstore.

Your iPad or iPhone sitting idle may be costing you money. That’s the message from a class-action lawsuit charging AT&T with overcharging Apple customers up to 300 percent.

Ten years ago today, on May 19th, 2001, Apple opened the first Apple retail store at Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. A decade later, there are 323 Apple Stores around the world, with 85 outside of the United States, servicing over two hundred and twenty five million customers per year.

To celebrate the Apple Store’s 10th, we decided to throw together a gallery of some of the most visually striking, noteworthy and downright weird Apple retail stores around the world.

That new MacBook Pro of yours, may be more Apple than originally thought. Although Intel was credited with the Thunderbolt trademark on early 2011 Apple laptops, it now appears that Apple may have beaten them to the bunch and snuck in their own trademark application a year ahead of time. Is this cricket?

Despite Google’s position as one of the biggest advertising companies on earth, if you’re a company looking to promote your product, buying ads for an Android device is a pretty dicy proposition when you could buy them on an iOS device instead.

With all the deals getting inked and all the right hires in place, Apple is increasingly ready to jump iTunes into the cloud… possibly as early as next month’s WWDC. But how exactly will it work?

Oh, Research In Motion! Can you for one moment stop making your would-be iPad killer suck even harder than it already does?

Panned critically at debut, RIM recently had to recall over a thousand half-baked units. Now reports indicate that a recent patch has made PlayBook performance even worse than it was before.

Apple’s plans to launch a super-speedy LTE-enabled ‘4G’ iPhone later this year have reportedly been scuppered by a delay in manufacturing the chips, however, when the device does launch in 2012, it’s heading to China Mobile.

As this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference approaches, it seems Apple’s plan to bring us a magical cloud filled with a never-ending collection of music called ‘iCloud’ is getting its final touches. Sources say a licensing deal with music label EMI is now in place, but what about the other labels?

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for since the iPad first launched in April 2010. It’s the reason we all stood in line for a day to get our hands on one. And it’s the reason why the iPad has been such an overwhelming success all over the world. Yes, I’m talking about Playboy magazine… which is now available on your tablet.

According to a report on local television station KHOU Channel 11 you just might get more than you bargained for after your next trip to a local Apple Store in Houston, Texas. According to authorities in Houston there have been at least six Apple customers in Houston who have been followed home and robbed at gunpoint.

The smooth little black pebble above from XtremeMac is a new combo charging/bluetooth-streaming option called the InCharge Home BT ($80). Pretty simple concept: Plug it into a wall outlet, then hook it up via the 3.5 mm jack to any speaker system and bango, you’ve given the system Bluetooth streaming capability, which means you can stream music to your speakers from any iDevice or Mac; then use the USB port to charge stuff (comes with a USB t0 30-pin connector and a 3.5 mm jack cable). There’s also an auto version called, naturally, the InCharge Auto BT ($80) that XtremeMac says allows hands-free calling, so we’re assuming it’s equipped with a microphone.

Mophie’s new Juice Pack Plus for the iPhone 4 (both versions) is just one millimeter thicker than Mophie’s flagship Juice Pack Air — but stuffs 25 percent more battery into that sliver. The $100 Plus is the most massive battery ever produced by Mophie and comes with all the fancy frippery of it’s lighter brother (rubberized casing, LED status indicator, standby switch and what Mophie calls an “Acoustic Sound Enhancement,” which we weren’t sure actually did anything in our test of the 3GS version of the Air).

Liking the purple? Better get a jump on ordering; only 3000 of those were made. If you miss out, there’s still cyan, yellow, magenta or good ‘ol black-on-black to pick from.

Can a $99 second-gen Apple TV operate under heavy load as a web server? With the death of the venerable XServ line, one hosting company is going to try to find out.

San Francisco-based Cult of Mac staff and any others of our far-flug correspondent crew as can get here look forward to meeting readers and WWDC attendees at a cocktail reception on Thursday, June 9 from 6pm – 9pm during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference.