What started off as an off-the-cuff joke by Steve Jobs at September’s iPod Event has become an actual sub-industry of the iPod accessory market as manufacturers churn out watchbands by the factory full for the new, touchscreen Nano. The only problem is the cheapness and unimaginativeness of most of these solutions: either they are cheap rubber shells to encase your Nano in or simple straps onto which you are meant to clip your Nano.

They don’t pass muster. MINIMAL’s latest, Kickstarter-funded line of iPod Nano watchbands are something different though. They’re not just functional… they’re gorgeous.

The rationale behind Apple’s unibody aluminum housings isn’t just aesthetic appeal: it’s also sturdiness. Unibody aluminum adds a bit of heft to an ultra-thin Apple portable, but it makes that device also harder to break despite its thinness.

There’s always room for improvement though, and if a new patent published by the USPTO is anything to go by, future iPads might trade in their aluminum shell for ultra-strong carbon fiber.

According to reports last month, Apple is working on a reprogrammable SIM module for future iPhones that would allow Cupertino to sell iPhones directly to customers without it being locked to a specific carrier.

Hey, guess who doesn’t like that idea? Hint: the carriers.

Deals on Apple products tend to be depressingly meager when you’re buying new, as I discovered yesterday when I did some price comparisons on the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air, only to discover the most aggressive deal I could find on the laptop was a whole five dollars off the retail price. Yet that’s all too typical: Apple products tend not to dip dramatically lower than their MSRP unless they are either refurbished or subsidized by a carrier.

Consider our jaws dropped, then, by the biggest deal on a current-gen Apple product we’ve ever seen. TJ Maxx — TJ Maxx, of all places! — is offering the iPad in at least some stores for a cool benjamin off the regular price.

Apple was on a roll yesterday: not only did their crackerjack team of programmers manage to release a new point update for Safari 4 and 5 resolving many existing issues, but they also pushed down the Software Update pipeline a new Boot Camp and MacBook EFI update.

Unscrew the salt shaker and empty it onto your uvula, because it’s Digitimes rumor time. According to the always questionable publication, Apple’s already got the parts suppliers for the iPad 2 lined up… and they’re ready to name names.

Apple is preparing a CDMA-GSM iPad that would overshadow the current 3G version, an analyst wrote Friday. The report also suggests the new iPad would follow the design of Apple’s recent unibody MacBooks.

Supplier checks “suggest Apple is going to be ratcheting down production of the existing 3G iPad over the next two months in anticipation of ramping up a new World iPad that is powered by Qualcomm and will run both GSM and CDMA based networks around the world,” according to Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair.

iTunes offers a ton of free podcasts in its educational section geared towards making you a little smarter. Or at least sound that way. The best part: most of them are short, weekly series so you can cram in some good water cooler ideas or conference coffee break chat material when you have time.

Here are some of our favorites – educate us with your picks in the comments.

1. Stuff You Should Know

These quirky podcasts run about half an hour each, and explain often topical questions like how rehab works or how to go about house swapping. One of the informative podcasts from the folks at How Stuff Works, this is probably our favorite, though Stuff from the B-Side and Stuff Mom Never Told You are also excellent.

If you’re in the netbook, notebook, PC, hand-held gaming, newspaper or DVD business, Apple wants to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti — at least according to a huge number of observers who don’t know what the word “cannibalize” means.

For example, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows product management, Gavriella Schuster, said this month that the netbook market is “definitely getting cannibalized” by the iPad.

Wait, “cannibalized”? What does that mean, exactly? And why is everybody saying it?

There are a number of reasons I like writing for Cult of Mac, but one of the most important reasons is the great readers, like you, we have visiting our site. Granted every so often you can be pretty vocal about the tiniest detail, but when you come through with some good comments they should not be ignored. Therefore when I found two comments about shopping at Apple in my first post about Apple Technology Will Make You A Savvy Black Friday Shopper — I just had to share them.

Microsoft’s official Office for the Mac blog has announced a list of places where you can buy Office for Mac 2011 at discounted prices during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. The prices are pretty good during the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend at various retailers, but Amazon has the best price of all.

• Best Buy and MacMall (US): $20 off Home & Student 1-pack for $99 (regularly $119 ERP) and $20 off Home & Student Family Pack for $129 (regularly $149 ERP).
• Amazon (US): $40 off the Home & Student 1-pack for $79 (regularly $119 ERP) and Home & Student Family Pack for $109 (regularly $149 ERP).
• OfficeforMac.com (US): $20 off Home & Student Family Pack for $129 (regularly $149 ERP).

Office for Mac 2011 has gotten favorable reviews and performs better than previous versions. If you are interested in upgrading from an older version Thanksgiving weekend will probably be your best opportunity to get a good deal.

Clarifying remarks attributed to him by a column in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said today that, based on things he’s read, he does believe Android will eventually come to dominate the smartphone market — but not because it’s better than or has more features than Apple’s iOS platform.

“I [wasn’t] suggesting [Android is] better than iOS… it can get greater market share and still be crappy,” Wozniak said, pointing out that he merely told the De Telegraaf reporter that voice commands on Android were presently more sophisticated, but that Apple would catch up through its recent acquisitions. He went on to say that almost every app he has is better on the iPhone than it is on Android.

[Engadget]

Business valuations are almost always a tricky figure to pin down, but analysts at Trefis figure they have a pretty reliable one for the iPhone, in case Apple and Steve Jobs might be thinking of spinning it off as a separate company.

By Trefis’s numbers, which assume a 140%-of-market-cap valuation for Apple (AAPL) as a whole and iPhone as representing 53% of Apple’s business, then the iPhone business alone would be worth more than all but 10 companies in existence worldwide today.

Interestingly enough, at $209 billion, iPhone, Inc. would be worth just slightly less than the 10th largest company in the world, AT&T.

[CNNMoney]

C-Section Comics pretty much hit the nail on the head with this take on the big three brands of smartphone users, how they see themselves and how they see each other. Click the image for a full-size view.

Be sure to check out the artist’s archive for more witty, well-drawn takes on some of the great questions and topics of the day.

Apple iPads wowed the crowds at Tokyo Designers Week this year in a 5 X 5 configuration where 25 iPads gave onlookers an opportunity to watch video and music synced wirelessly on all the devices. Audience members were also invited to manipulate the sound and videos on the individual iPads, which got things quickly all out-of-sync and challenged participants to work together to return the display to a harmonious state.

The design was commissioned by the Environmental Ministry of Japan as part of a “Challenge 25″ event to mark the 25th anniversary of Tokyo Designers Week and draw attention to human impact on the environment.

See more about the work of the display’s DJ designers as well as a hands-on video that talks about how they got it to work here.

[Tokyo Tek]

Apple has just released another gold master candidate of its long-awaited iOS 4.2 firmware to developers. This version is iOS 4.2.1, and we assume it quashes the Wi-Fi bug that’s recently been affecting the iPad.

MacRumors reports that Apple has instructed developers not to resubmit their applications under the new build, suggesting that only minor fixes are included in this update.

Unfortunately it’s not the iOS 4.2 news many of us have been anticipating, however, it’s nice to see Apple are fixing these bugs before they release the firmware to the public.

Developers can get their hands on iOS 4.2.1 via the iOS Dev Centre.

This new iPhone case from Kalomix is pretty mysterious: it turns the back of your iPhone 4 into a working chalkboard.

I knew I was old the moment I realized that the foundation of my every Sunday’s pleasure was wandering down to the newsstand and picking up the latest issue of the Economist, so I’m both a little sad and a little delighted to note that I’ll no longer have to make that journey: the Economist is coming to the iPhone and iPad.

Apple has just released an incremental point update for Safari 5 on both the Mac and PC, Safari 5.0.3, as well as Safari 4.1.3 for Mac OS X Tiger.

Safari 5.0.3 is largely a security and stability release, although there are some notable improvements including more accurate top hit results in the address field, more accurate results in top sites and more reliably pop-up blocking.

You can download the new version either through Software Update, or directly from Apple’s website.

The best-looking game to ever hit iOS has now arrived on the App Store: id software Mutant Bash TV (based on an engine derived from their forthcoming next-gen shooter Rage, and taking place in the same universe) has just hit the App Store.

Google’s Docs service is meant to make office documents easier, more accessible and more collaborative by bringing them into the cloud. Instead of needing to purchase or download an office software suite, you just go to a URL, load up the web application and you’re good to go.

It’s a fantastic product, but as the desktops and notebooks we used to compute on have gradually been replaced by mobile products like smartphones and tablets, Google Docs has fallen behind.

There’s great news today for users interested in bringing their Google Docs with them on their iPhone, though: Google has just announced that they’ve vastly improved the functionality of Google Docs on iOS, and you can now even edit your documents on your iPhone or iPad.

The secret sauce is Google’s new document editor, which supports editing within Mobile Safari, albeit with a few limitations. They’re in the process of rolling out the new document editor, and it’ll work on iOS 3.0+ devices, as well as Android 2.2 Froyo… now downloads required..

Verizon’s Twitter account might have tipped the forthcoming arrival of the iPhone to America’s biggest CDMA network, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is still playing coy about the possibility of a Verizon iPhone.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Seidenberg says that a Verizon iPhone will only arrive “when Apple thinks it’s time.”

Apple’s iAd network has already shaken up the mobile advertising world here in the United States since its July debut, but come December, it’s going to do the same to Europe, Cupertino has just announced.

Steve Wozniak — that wonderful bear of a tech evangelist — may love his iPhone, but he’s not banking on iOS to handily win the smartphone wars: instead, the Apple co-founder says that Google’s Android operating system will be the dominating platform.

If you’ve got a second generation AppleTV and looking to add a couple of o’s to its oomph, Fire Core have just announced that they’ve got you covered: they’re porting their popular aTV Flash software from the first-generation AppleTV to the second, complete with Last.fm and browser support.