We again highlight a deal on MacBook Pros offered by the Apple Store, including a 2.4GHz model for just $899. Next is an alarm clock and iPhone or iPad doc duo from Innova for just $20. Finally, we offer a micro Sim card for unlocked GSM iPhones or iPads.

Along the way, we also check out a portfolio for iPads with a 6-foot USB cable, plus auto-save and backup software for the Mac. As always, details on these items and more can be found on the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Remember the hacker who exposed over 114,000 AT&T iPad customers’ personal data in last year’s widely publicized security breach? He just pled guilty.

We love Jan Michael Cart’s incredible iOS concept videos. We still wish Apple would bring his dashboard and voice recognition concepts to iOS 5.

Perhaps Cart’s latest idea is the one most closely in reach: he envisions cross-platform text chat between iOS and OS X computers, and foresees Apple releasing their new iMessage client on the Mac App Store.

Apple’s bid to prevent the rest of the world from using the term “Appstore” may be about to hit a stumbling block, after U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton revealed today that she will “probably” deny the Cupertino company exclusive access to the term.

Yesterday, Apple co-founder, occasional Cult of Mac commenter and just all-around huggable bear Steve Wozniak was awarded an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in Montreal, and as he has been wont to do quite a bit recently, he used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to talk about super-intelligent robots, futuristic androids and the ever present danger of machines enslaving humans.

To businesses that continue to run Windows XP on PCs hooked up to CRT monitors, and those still issuing their employees with the Nokia 3310, take note: As part of a new pilot scheme due to run until December, The Vatican is issuing each of its visitors with an iPod Touch, pre-loaded with a special app that promises to make their visit even more enriching.

Touching the divine has never been so easy!

For some time, we’ve known that Apple lusts for the China market. Now comes word Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer (and CEO stand-in) was seen at China Mobile’s home office. Signing China Mobile means $70 billion for the tech giant, potentially doubling the tech giant’s cash-on-hand.

If your audio taste is anything like mine, you’ll want to mute this music video for “Undivided,” the first single for the group Blush, feat. Snoopy Dog. It’s like someone vomiting jolly ranchers down your cochleas.

That said, make sure to watch it, because it was made by animator Shawn Harris using iOS app Brushes. Impressive, right? And we have the making off too!

An Apple patented granted yesterday for the company’s original iPhone contains within one of its illustrations a small piece of information that could confirm the company is willing to open up Notification Center widgets in iOS 5 to third-party developers.

Here’s a great post over at 37 Signals, posing the question: how many of the apps on your iPhone do you actually make frequent use of?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjg8tmGC3O8&feature=player_embedded

Since iOS 5 was released two weeks ago, jailbreak tweak developers have been hard at work creating third-party widgets that can be integrated into the new Notification Center. The latest is called WeeTranslate, and offers a quick and easy way to access Google Translate on your iPhone.

Nokia’s N9 is an interesting new challenge to the iPhone. Its had a lot of criticism since it was announced a couple of days ago, but I want to concentrate on something I think it does pretty well: simplify the touch screen interface.

20 years ago today, on June 23, 1991, the first Sonic game hit the shelves and the loveable little blue hedgehog that would become Sega’s flagship character was born — ready to do battle with Nintendo’s Mario.

Today, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, over a year after the game first hit consoles. But it was well worth the wait!

While we’ve already seen reports that the camera and LED flash are to be separated at birth on Apple’s next iPhone, a new rumor claims that the device will actually boast dual LED flash for taking better photographs in low light conditions.

Once again, Apple has fallen back on its developer guidelines as a reason for pulling an app that caused a public-relations catastrophe.

In just about 24 hours after a letter of complaint from an Israeli minister, it removed the Third Intifada app from the iTunes store.

“We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” an Apple spokesman said Wednesday evening.

The same reason was cited as cause for removal of the “gay cure” app back in March after it unleashed a huge protest.

The question remains: doesn’t anyone at Apple read these guidelines first?

You could (and for the purpose of discussion, please do) substitute  or Baby Shaker, iSlam Muhammad — both apps Apple had to remove after a predictable public outcry.

It’d be so much easier if they vetted the apps instead of approving, then yanking them.

When it comes to monitoring your Mac’s status,such as the CPU or RAM usage, you have a couple different options. You can use menu bar applications which are often costly, or Dashboard widgets that are inconvenient to access. If neither of these sound like good options to you, monitoring your system with Activity Monitor might be a good option. It’s free, (after all, it’s built into Mac OS X), and it lets you display handy information right from the dock icon. In this video, I’ll show you how to set it up.

Apple has pulled the Third Intifada app at the request of an Israeli minister.

In what may be the quickest removal in iTunes history, Apple yanked the app just a day after Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli-Yoel Edelstein wrote to Steve Jobs saying the app “passed on information about protests, some violent, planned against Israel.”

We don’t know exactly when, but when we checked for it about an hour ago it was still there, racking up negative “ratings.”

Apple has not responded to our requests for comment or issued a press release on its website.

More to come.

UPDATE: CEO Joe Scott retracted the statements made in the press release quoted below. That story is available here.

When Apple sidelined new apps that were tipping off tipsy drivers about DUI checkpoints, we wondered what would happen to the apps that were already in the iTunes store.

Some of them — like Trapster — pulled the DUI alerts while continuing to offer info on speed traps.

But PhantomALERT just issued a press release boasting about how it stayed in iTunes “defying” the senators who pressured Apple to ban apps with DUI checkpoint info.

Back in May when we reported excitedly from the launch presser for Pioneer’s new AppRadio car audio deck, we were told it’d hit store shelves by late June, and cost in the vicinity of $500. Well, it’s arrived, and Pioneer has added a few features to the free AppRadio app. Oh, and they’ve lopped $100 off the price — it’s now $399. Aren’t surprises great?

Remember that Chinese teen who sold his kidney for an iPad 2? That was bad enough, but now another Chinese teen is following his lead and offering something even more irreplaceable in exchange for an iPhone 4. She’s selling her virginity.

In a shootout to determine which tablet has the best display over at DisplayMate, the iPad 2 came out ahead of the Eee Transformer and the Motorola Xoom. No surprises there.

What might be a bigger surprise is that the display experts over at DisplayMate have seriously approached the idea of whether or not the iPad 3 will get a Retina Display and have concluded that it would be nothing more than a marketing stunt… and would actually lower the quality of the iPad’s display while slowing down the hardware.

So you’re a cutting edge, Post-PC consumer. You’ve bought into the Cloud, have all the latest apps on your iPad, and you work on the go. Just tweet this, email that, and print out an electronic boarding pass before you head to the airport.

Not so fast on that last step. There’s a tantalizing Print button in many iOS apps these days, but very few printers are usable without some extra work first. Unlike printing on the Mac or PC, AirPrint (the iOS-based printing system) is still not yet a fully realized solution. Fortunately, workarounds are available.

Apple COO Tim Cook happened to pop on by China Mobile’s headquarters earlier today. You know, just happened to be in the neighborhood, thought he’d see what was going on. No biggie.

Except China Mobile isn’t currently partnered with Apple. Oh, and they just happen to be the world’s largest mobile phone carrier, providing for over six hundred million customers. Biggie indeed.

Final Cut Pro X might now finally be available for purchase on the Mac App Store for a lower price than ever, but for some video professionals, it has not been worth the wait: a pretty update that sadly jettisons many of the features that they depend on. There may be hope on the horizon, though: Apple has reportedly claimed that Final Cut Pro X will be getting some of these missing features in future updates.

Jailbreak artist Comex has been hinting at plans to dust off Jailbreakme.com for a while now, allowing users on compatible iOS devices to jailbreak their systems just by loading the page in Mobile Safari. But what devices will be supported?

All of them running iOS 4.2.1 to iOS 4.3.3, for one. The iPad 2 for another. Hoorah!