Evernote for iPhone, iPad, and Mac have all been updated today, adding a feature long requested by many users: reminders. Users can now click or tap the small alarm clock icon to add a reminder to any of their notes, which will pin those notes to the top of their note list in a new Reminders section, which can be manually reordered. Due dates can be added to reminders, and users can choose whether they want to receive notifications from the app itself, via email, or both. Mark the note as done by hitting the checkmark on the left when you are finished. Reminders work with Evernote’s shared notebooks as well.

There were some other, non-reminder related features added to both the Mac and iOS versions of Evernote. Both versions now boast enhanced security with XAuth, and allow users to view any application that has access to their account from Evernote Web. Additionally, Evernote for Mac has a redesigned vertical list that shows more notes, two new text styles, and the ability to edit saved searches.

Both updates are available now.

• Free for Mac - Download Now
• Free for iPhone & iPad - Download Now

Popular accessory maker Moshi is back, with a pair of new protective cases for the Retina MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. The cases are the second generation in Moshi's Codex line of MacBook cases and will be available for both sizes of MacBook Air, and both sizes of Retina MacBook Pro.

The Codex cases are tailored to fit the MacBook, with the interiors insulated with memory foam, and the exteriors taking on a brushed metal appearance while being water resistant. The new versions come with a new new binding for added durability, and a curved design to maintain the lowest profile possible. When opened up, all ports on whichever MacBook you own are full available, so there's no need to remove it from the case to use it.

Something like this would be handy to have while travelling, and the new Codex cases are fully TSA approved so the laptop doesn't need to come out of the case when going through airport security.

The Codex will be available in Steel Black and Brushed Aluminum finishes for the two 13-inch MacBooks, and in Steel Black for the 11-inch Air and 15-inch Retina. Prices start at $70 for the 11-inch, to $75 for the 13-inch and $80 for the largest 15-inch case. No availability information is available at this time, but let us know what you think. Travellers in particular, does something like the new Codex appeal to you to look after your MacBook on your travels?

Dictation is a fantastic, Siri-like service on iPhone and iPad that, at the tap of a mic button, transforms what you say out loud into text on the screen. But sometimes that mic button ghosts over, grays out, and otherwise becomes un-tabble. That kills the natural-language interface, makes apps less accessible, and can otherwise stop your productivity dead.

This should never, not ever happen, of course. iOS should do everything it needs to to keep that button live. But it seems, based on my own tests and talking to a few developers, that when memory gets low, iOS turns off Dictation. Sigh.

However, since memory does seem to be the issue, there's an easy if annoying fix:

Kill all apps in the fast app switcher to free up memory.

• How to force quit apps in iOS

It's a waste of time but it has its uses and this is one of them. As soon as whatever's sitting in the background -- doing what it shouldn't be doing, eating up all the memory it should't be eating -- is defenestrated from the system, the Dictation button will de-gray and come roaring back to life.

Hopefully Apple fixes this in iOS 7, and the Dictation button just works and keeps on working. Meanwhile, anyone found a better way to fix this?

It's debatable whether we'll ever see the release of the jOBS movie outside its initial screenings, but the show, as they say, must go on. And to that effect, actor Ashton Kutcher -- who played the late Steve Jobs in the movie -- is here at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas. He's also a tech investor and has founded a company for original digital media.

We'll be liveblogging the conversation this morning, starting at 9:30 a.m. PDT -- that's 12:30 p.m. on the East Cost. Join us!

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We knew it was coming, but now Mailbox for iPad is here! Released today into the App Store, Mailbox for iPad provides the same great email experience as the iPhone version but optimized for the larger screen. The iPad version comes by way of an update to the main app.

We've only been playing around with it for a short time, but first impressions are good. All the same great mail management features translate nicely to the larger screen, and swiping feels even more natural on the iPad. The added screen real estate gives you a 2-pane view, so you can scroll through your inbox while reading a message.

Also included in the update is a bunch of bug fixes, without saying which bugs they're fixing. It is also still Gmail only for the time being folks. The download is live in the App Store now, so go get it! Then come back and tell us how you like it.

• Free - Download Now

Excitement is building in Adelaide, Australia ahead of this Saturday's opening of their first Apple Store, and judging by these photos the store is looking fantastic! iMore forums member mglivesey kindly sent us some photographs of the completed store as he eagerly awaits the big day.

The interior is as we've come to know and love from an Apple Store; rows of tables adorned with the products, very clean, minimal styling. And, as mglivesey points out, that is a guard that's been hired to keep watch, and he had to snap the photos quickly while he wasn't looking!

The first 1000 people through the doors after the 10am opening are set to get the now traditional commemorative t-shirts. So, to all our Australian friends, will you be joining mglivesey at the grand opening of the Adelaide Apple Store this Saturday? Shout out in the comments, and enjoy the rest of the photos while you're waiting! And if you grab any shots of the grand opening, be sure to share them with us too!

Thanks mglivesey for the photos!

Microsoft has launched their new Windows 8 commercial, and appears to have recruited Siri to help them take on the iPad. OK, so Siri would never do such a thing, but they're licensing the same voice, and it achieves the same effect. The 30-second clip takes aim at what the iPad can't do, that a Windows 8 tablet can. The whole thing is a parody of an Apple ad, right down to the chopsticks played on Garageband at the end.

During the clip, 'Siri' is heard to say each of the things that the iPad can't do, like Live Tiles and 'snapped' side-by-side applications. All true, but not necessarily the sort of thing that's going to turn someone away from buying the iPad. Then we get to the killer "I guess Powerpoint isn't one of those things" line. Yeah. But of course, Microsoft isn't missing out on a whole giant heap of revenue in not releasing a version of Office for the iPad now, is it?

What Microsoft didn't specifically mention in the commercial is that the tablet they were using -- the ASUS Vivotab Smart -- runs the full version of Windows 8. And, that means at some point, someone is going to find themselves operating in the traditional Windows desktop environment, which isn't exactly tablet friendly. Or perhaps they'll wonder why they have two different looking versions of Internet Explorer on the same device.

So, what do you guys think of this latest effort from the folks at Redmond? It's not at all subtle, but is there anything in there that would compel you to drop your iPad for a Windows 8 tablet? Office? Price? Live Tiles? Anything? Drop us your thoughts!

via WPCentral

An update is due to hit for Google Chrome on iOS in the coming days, and with it we'll see their new voice search capabilities added to the Omnibox. Having just rolled out a similar feature to Google Chrome for Mac -- albeit using the Google home page instead -- it seems the iOS version is next on the list.

When you touch the Omnibox in the updated version, a microphone appears for you to speak your queries directly to Google. In some instances you will receive a spoken response, just as on the desktop version. As well as all this voice searching business, Google is also improving the speed at which webpages will reload by better using the cache when the network speed is slower.

Speaking queries to your iPhone and iPad all sounds mightily familiar, but would you use this in place of Siri at all? It is only for web searches after all, but if you're a heavy Chrome user is this something you'll be putting to use? Look for the update to land in the App Store in the coming days.

Source: Google Chrome Blog

Twitter for Mac has received its second update in a matter of weeks, and this time we're treated to Notification Center support. It's been a long time in coming, especially considering the number of competing apps that already have the same support, but it's better late than never. This comes just a few weeks after the app was updated to support the Retina Display MacBook Pro.

In addition to the Notification Center support, Twitter has thrown in a bunch of fixes, the most notable of which is the fix for Growl notifications not working for users in Lion and Mountain Lion. Grab a copy right now from the Mac App Store, and be sure to tell us if this latest update finally makes you happier with the official Twitter client, or if you're still happier using something else?

• Free - Download Now

Clear, the beautiful, gesture-ridden list-keeper for iPhone, has been updated with the ability to share lists via email. Instead of just a text based email, Clear also includes an attachment that allows recipients to open the list with the Clear app. To share a list, simply shake your iPhone to bring up the email option.

Realmac Software also teases of a couple new secret themes and the promise of an iPad version of Clear in the future.

What do you think of the new update? The ability to share a list that can be opened with Clear is very cool. I'm also very excited about the idea of an iPad version. Are there any other features you'd love to see added to Clear?

• $1.99 - Download now

iPhone and iPad accessory maker Otterbox has announced that they're buying iPhone and iPad accessory maker LifeProof. "OtterProof" -- as I'm sure someone will be calling them since "LifeBox" is probably taken? -- CEO Brian Thomas had this to say:

The joining of OtterBox and LifeProof is a way to combine two great brands and provide customers with even more great products, services and choices for smartphone accessories. Both companies are successful because we foster an environment where everyone takes pride in being part of a culture that knows how to identify opportunities and grow them quickly. Our goal in this acquisition is to create more value for our customers than we ever could have generated while operating individually.

I love both companies' products, and we our accessory division sells both companies' products in the iMore store so here's hoping they become greater than the sum of their parts and put out even more spectacular products post-merger.

Anyone else looking forward to a sleeker, slimmer, even more rugged OtterProof Defender? Or are you already lamenting the deal?

Source: Otterbox

Twitter announced Wednesday that it is offering a form of two-step authentication for security-conscious users who want to make sure that their accounts are protected from unauthorized use. The new feature is described in a post made by Jim O'Leary of Twitter's product security team on the official Twitter blog.

Twitter's two-step authentication process adds a verification code validation that's sent to a mobile phone number by SMS each time you sign in to Twitter. Enter the six-digit code and you're on your way.

This news comes on the heels of high-profile Twitter account hackings of newspapers, news television programs and news services. Victims have included the Financial Times, 60 Minutes, and perhaps most infamously, the Associated Press. The hacked AP account produced a phony tweet saying the White House had been bombed, which set off a brief stock market drop, caused by a reaction from automated stock trading systems that track news keywords.

Many of the recent high-profile Twitter hijackings have been credited to the "Syrian Electronic Army," an anonymous group of hackers loyal to the regime of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Comparing the best online photo storage options from Flickr, Google+, 500px, Dropbox, Amazon, Instagram, Facebook, and more!

We've talked on numerous occasions about how great of camera you have included with your iPhone and have taken a look at some great photography apps to accompany it, but once you take all those photos and edit them to perfection, where are you going to store them? You can store them locally on various devices and hard drives, but what about in the cloud? Other than Photo Stream, what are other cloud storage options for all those memories you're accumulating?

Facebook, Instagram, Twitpic, and other non-options

Before we jump into the various great options out there, let's first discuss the fact that posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twipic, and any other little photo sharing service is not good enough. It may be easy to think "oh, I posted that to Facebook, so if anything happens, I know I can always retrieve my photo from there." Well, yes, as long as you don't cancel your account or do something that gets you banned, your photos are there, but even though Facebook has a "high resolution" option, it's not actually full resolution. The max size Facebook will save your photos is 2048px along the longest side. A photo taken with an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 is larger than this.

The quality of your images saved on services such as Instagram, Twitpic, and other "little" sharing services is even worse. You should not consider these as good options for storing photos.

So if Facebook and Instagram aren't good choices, then what are? Between Flickr, 500px, Dropbox, Google+, and Amazon Cloud Drive, you're sure to find a great option to meet your needs.

Flickr

Flickr just updated with an enticing new overhaul that includes 1TB of free storage. Yes, 1 terabyte. For free. Flickr also features a gorgeous new interface and an established community of users. In addition to just storing your photos, you can also publicly share them and join groups and discussions. If you're serious about photography or simply just looking for a place to save your images, Flickr is an excellent option and completely free (with upgrade options).

• Flickr
• Flickr for iPhone - Download now

500px

500px is a unique choice in that, in addition to being a place to store photos, you also have the option to sell your photos in the 500px market. It's also a social network where you can follow specific users and like and comment on their work. 500px does have more of a "professional" vibe that markets towards quality photography, so if you identify yourself as a photographer, 500px will likely be a great fit.

A free account allows 20 uploads per week, and accounts with unlimited uploading begin at $25/year.

• 500px
• 500px for iPhone and iPad - Download now

Google+

Although Google+ is primarily a social network, it also offers a solid option for photo storage. With the Google+ app, you can even choose to automatically upload your photos from your iPhone to Google+ so that you don't even have to remember to do it yourself. However, when uploading from your iPhone, Google+ will store them at "Standard size" which is a max of 2048 pixels on the longest side. If you want to store full size images, you must upload from your desktop.

Full size uploads count against your Google Drive storage quota which starts at 15 GB with a free account. Paid accounts begin at $2.49/mo for 25 GB, but may be changing in the coming weeks.

• Google+
• Google Drive
• Google+ for iPhone and iPad - Download now

Dropbox

If you're not into the social integration associated with Flickr, 500px, and Google+, Dropbox is another excellent choice for storing your photos. It's not a social network, but strictly a storage service; however, if you do wish to share your photos, you can share a link to your folders and Dropbox will nicely display them for you. You can also set up the iPhone and iPad app to automatically upload your photos when you launch the Dropbox app.

A free Dropbox account includes 2 GB (with the ability to reach 18 GB), and "Pro" accounts start at $9.99/mo for 100 GB.

• Dropbox
• Dropbox for iPhone and iPad - Download now

Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon Cloud Drive is a storage service that's similar to Dropbox, and with the Amazon Cloud Drive Photos companion app for iPhone, you can easily upload and view your saved photos.

A free Amazon Cloud Drive account includes 5 GB of storage with paid plans starting at $10/year for 20 GB.

• Amazon Cloud Drive
• Amazon Cloud Drive Photos for iPhone - Download now

Your favorite way to store photos?

These are just a few of the different options available for storing your precious photographs, and if we missed any good ones, we want to know. Do you use a different service that you believe to be superior to these? Or do you not trust your memories in the hands of a 3rd party and back up onto external hard drives, instead? We want to know your system!

Personally, I'm going to start using Flickr to store everything that's important to me and 500px for photos I'm particularly proud of and value as art.

What about you?

Ahead of the All Star game in New York in July, MLB has released a new game into the App Store; MLB Home Run Derby. I love Baseball, despite being British, so as soon as I saw this in the App Store I had to take a look. It's a free download, and bases itself solely around one of the fun-to-watch extras of the All Star weekend, the Home Run Derby. So, a perfect casual game for the Baseball fan? Let's find out.

I'll start with the best part. The graphics are really good. My first thought was that it looks very similar to the gameday view in the main MLB At Bat application. There's only one stadium to play in, Citi Field the host for the All Star game, and it looks fantastic.

With this being the Home Run Derby, you only have to worry about one thing -- hitting it out of the park. There are two different control methods, a drag and release to aim and swing, or aim with your left hand and tap to swing with your right.

Home Run Derby has two different game modes, arcade and The Derby. Arcade mode is playable as many times as you like, and is done against a one minute time limit. You have a series of targets around the ground to aim for to increase your score, and the further you hit the ball the more points you get. Simple. Points means prizes, in the form of coins that are useable in the game to buy certain things with.

The Derby follows the run of the real thing, so 10 outs and you're done. There's no time limit, you just keep going until you're all out of chances. To win, you have to progress through two rounds to get to the final.

That's the good stuff. It's a fun little game to play, and if you hit a bigger home run that 457ft, then you've topped my best so far. The bad stuff is the in-app purchases. Sadly, the overriding feeling is that the game is designed around the purchases, and not the other way around.

The first example; you get three 'tickets' to play the Home Run Derby. Once these are gone, it's a matter of hours before the next ticket arrives. You can make this quicker, and get more tickets, by paying. The in-game currency can be won, but you have to do well in the Home Run Derby several times before you have enough to really buy anything. The green notes aren't won in the arcade mode.

Another example; You start out with one batter. More batters means more tickets to The Derby, and that means paying for them. Again, you either have to play and do well a lot over some time, or stump up the cash. You can improve your batters performance by way of a purchase, but you have to also purchase an additional slot to add this performance boost too. So, a double purchase.

Whether it's your real money or your in-game currency, there is far too much emphasis on having to buy things to progress and ultimately get more out of the game. I'm happy enough slugging away in arcade mode personally, but it's sad that a fun little game feels so held back by the freemium model.

More worrying too is that the App Store listing says "download free for a limited time only." If you think you might want this, I strongly recommend grabbing it right now while it's free. As a paid download I think I'd have a hard time recommending this. If the in-app purchases are overhauled, then it could be a different story.

The Good

• Excellent graphics
• Simple, easy to pick up controls
• Authentic players, stadium and rules

The Bad

• Too much emphasis on in-app purchases tarnishes the experience
• Glitches from time to time where menus stay visible over gameplay
• Apparent limited time offer on free download considering the level of in-app purchases

The Bottom Line

MLB Home Run Derby is a freemium game done wrong. Instead of building a game where in-app purchases boost progress, too often it feels like not paying up hurts. Three goes at the main Derby mode just isn't enough when it takes so long for another ticket to appear to play again. Thankfully, the Arcade mode isn't so constrained and is plenty of fun on its own to play. I like it though, really I do. I just don't like the way the in-app purchases have been implemented.

• Free - Download Now

Apple continues its streak as the most valuable brand in the world, outperforming Google, IBM, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola, with Google surpassing IBM to become the second most valuable brand. The BrandZ report, which names the 100 most valuable companies in the world across several categories, says that Apple’s brand value increased 1% as the entire technology sector remained declined slightly from last year, lacking a surge of growth from both Apple and Facebook.

Without the surge in Apple and Facebook brand value that helped drive category growth, Technology declined 1 percent in the BrandZ™ 2013 ranking, after five years averaging 8 percent annual category growth.

Other notable placements include Microsoft, which fell from number 5 to number 7, and Yahoo, three years absent from the list, returned at 92. Samsung, Apple’s chief mobile hardware rival, which jumped from 55 to 30, experiencing a surge in growth. Apple remains at the top, however, well ahead of the rest of the list, in both technology and overall. Their growth may have slowed over the last year, but if the exciting new products on their way later this year make a splash, there’s little doubt that Apple will remain on top for a long time to come.

Source: Millward Brown

Highly respected tech industry analyst Michael Gartenberg has reportedly left his previous employer, Gartner, for a position on Apple's marketing team. Forbes' Connie Guglielmo writes:

Gartenberg didn’t immediately reply to a voicemail message left at his office at Apple asking him to talk about his new role for the Cupertino, California-based company. He is working on the marketing team under Apple’s global marketing chief Phil Schiller, according to sources.

Gartenberg is terrific. He and Apple are lucky to have each other. Here's hoping Gartenberg's fresh set of eyes, and tremendous industry savvy, help Apple do an even better job than they're already doing, given the increasing competition.

Congratulations, both.

Source: Forbes

If you're planning on taking a vacation anytime soon or in the near future, you're probably already aware that there are typically lots of documents and information involved. Everything from boarding passes to rental car reservations to hotel reservations to anything else you may be planning. Keeping all of it straight can be a headache.

That's where TripIt comes in to help you stay organized and keep everything all in one place.

TripIt is basically an all in one travel planner directly on your iPhone and iPad. Not only do you have the ability to enter your flight information, but TripIt will actually auto-fill info upon arrival to your airline. Outside of just tracking flights, you can also track reservations for things such as car rentals and hotel reservations. Therefore, you eliminate some clutter from your life and gain the ability of entering all your information into one place for easy reference anytime you need it.

Creating a trip in TripIt is dead simple. Just enter some basic details like where you're going and when you're returning and you're already started. From there you can enter as much or as little information as you want. Outside of organizing actual travel details, you can also enter meeting information and receive notifications when events are coming up with TripIt Pro. This makes TripIt not only good for vacations, but for business trips as well.

TripIt offers a premium subscriptions called TripIt Pro as an in-app purchase for $49 a year in order to track other things such as frequent flyer miles on your credit cards. You can then view when your miles expire and how many you have at any given time. TripIt Pro is an add-on and not require but definitely a must have for anyone who travels semi-frequently to frequently.

The good

• Easy to use interface that makes entering information quick and painless
• Push notifications for upcoming flights, events, reservations, and more with TripIt Pro
• Pro option allows you to track even more things such as frequent flier miles
• Inner Circle feature allows anyone you'd like to have automatic access to your travel plans (requires Pro membership)

The bad

• No complaints

The bottom line

If you travel frequently or find yourself overwhelmed with keeping track of flight information and reservations for vacations, TripIt is a must have. For those who travel constantly, TripIt makes mapping out your trips painless and is well worth the $49 a year price tag to track virtually everything you'd need as well as receive notifications on the go.

Before planning your next vacation, definitely give TripIt a look when it comes time for keeping track of all those bookings and reservations.

• $0.99 (ad based version available for free) - Download Now

We're coming to you live this morning from the beautiful Sands Expo Convention Center in Las Vegas, where Verizon is going to talk to us about ... something. Given the context of the CTIA venue, it's entirely possible we'll just be getting an update on Verizon's network capabilities -- and possibly an update on when to expect Voice Over LTE. Or, perhaps we'll actually get some new hardware. 

Only one way to find out -- it's liveblog time!

The show kicks off just after 2 p.m. EDT, and 11 a.m. PDT. (OK, technically things get going at 10 after, but we're nothing if not early.)

Join us after the break as we bring it to you, live.

Microsoft's Xbox One, unveiled Tuesday at a special event in Redmond, looks to blur the line between gaming and other forms of entertainment like watching TV. Watching Microsoft demonstrate the capabilities of the new system gave me a sense of déjà vu, because a lot of what Microsoft showed are features that pundits and bloggers would love to see from the heretofore mythical Apple television.

I won't recap for you all the features and technologies available in the new system - for that I'll defer to our friends at Windows Phone Central. But the overarching message Microsoft offered was that the Xbox One is the centerpiece of the new home entertainment system. More than a game console, Xbox One serves as the nexus for television viewing, music and other forms of entertainment, and Microsoft is even striking out into original content development with shows created for Xbox Live. Perhaps predictably, they're developing a live action series around Halo.

Microsoft execs veered into Minority Report territory by controlling the Xbox One using hand gestures and voice control. (The Xbox 360 with Kinect can do that now, but on a more limited basis.) Microsoft promises that the Kinect, to be included with Xbox One, is now high resolution enough to recognize your face and measure your heartbeat. Okay, now that I write that out, it sounds a bit creepy. But that's the direction we're moving.

The center of home entertainment?

Some people scratched their heads at the name. Xbox One? But we were already at 360! But it makes sense when you listen to Microsoft's pitch as the Xbox One as the center of home entertainment.

Even the design of the Xbox One speaks to Microsoft's desire to broaden its appeal in the living room beyond mere gaming. The new box looks like a home entertainment appliance. Its squared off, simple lines and black and white trim guarantee the Xbox One will blend in well with a stereo receiver and flat screen TV, rather than drawing attention to itself like a traditional game console.

Microsoft articulated a pretty comprehensive media strategy - original and third party game development, original entertainment content using Xbox Live as the broadcast medium, and integration with the rest of your home entertainment center to simplify the experience.

And if you sift through most of the words written about Apple and its still-imaginary television, you'll find that many of those writers are hoping that Apple's working on the same track. I've read wild-eyed prognostications suggesting that Apple's foray into television would yield us devices that we'd talk with and gesture at; that Apple would be the savior to straighten out the mess of remotes and TV, DVR and cable box interfaces we're currently faced with.

Compared with where we're at today, it's easy to understand the appeal of a single system that unifies our home entertainment experience. It's a problem that's been really difficult to tackle and done with only limited degrees of success. Logitech's Harmony remote was one such attempt, but it remains squarely a niche product. Wealthy homeowners can invest more money than a mid-range sedan in an automated home entertainment system, but that's a solution that's squarely aimed at one percenters.

A changing landscape

It's been eight years since the last Xbox system came out, and the landscapes of both home entertainment and gaming have changed dramatically - when the Xbox 360 debuted, the iPhone was still two years away from being introduced. Game consoles garned huge interactive entertainment dollars.

Console games remain a multibillion dollar industry, but mobile technology and "casual gaming" have made a huge dent in a business that was once considered recession-proof and contraction-proof. What's more, consumers' use of game consoles has changed. In my house, for example, my kids are as likely to watch a Netflix movie streamed on their game console as they are to play a game. And the games they do play are increasingly downloaded from Xbox Live or the PlayStation Store, not bought at a retailer and inserted as a disc.

The Xbox One will remain, at its core, a game console, but it makes sense that Microsoft wants to expand the Xbox One's role as an all-around entertainment center. One that has value to members of the household that simply aren't interested in gaming.

Room for everyone

Maybe Apple is working on some of the same problems Microsoft hopes to tackle with the Xbox One, maybe it isn't. Of one thing I'm certain: the chance is negligible that Apple will rework the Apple TV as a gaming platform, either through installable apps or lower-latency connections to iOS devices: AirPlay is fine for spectating games, but absolutely useless if you want to play game on your iOS device but use the TV as your only display. And if you think it's as easy as just making iOS apps available for the Apple TV, you're not thinking through the actual interface - multitouch doesn't work

Obviously today's Apple TV is not the answer that pundits are looking for. All I know for sure is that until Apple actually has a product to announce, it's all rumor. And that pundits and bloggers have gotten enormous mileage out of a single comment that Tim Cook made in an interview last year when he called television an area of "intense interest" for Apple.

For now, though, Microsoft is positioning the Xbox One as the centerpiece of the home entertainment system. And at least as it's envisioned today, the Apple TV is little more than a sideshow. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Home entertainment is big business, and there's plenty of room for different companies with different ideas. Apple's done quite nicely for itself up to now without dominating the entire living room.

If you use iTunes U in order to subscribe to or download courses, you're probably already familiar with how it works and how to browse for items that interest you. There may come a time when you run across a course that you think may interest someone else.

iTunes U makes courses easy to share it with anyone.

1. Launch the iTunes U app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on the Catalog button in the upper right hand corner in order to view the store.
3. Now find the course that you'd like to share with someone and tap into it in order to view the summary screen.
4. From here, tap the Share button in the upper right hand corner. You can now choose to share that course with someone via email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, or simply copy the link in order to share it another way.

The all-new iMore show, the one I told you about yesterday, with the new day, time, format, and features, kicks off today at 12:30pm PT/3:30pm ET. I'll be co-hosting the show with our own Peter Cohen, and joining us will be Derek Kessler of Mobile Nations, and special guest Michael Simmons of Flexibits.

Want to be part of the show? Grab your iPhone or iPad, record a short (30 second) audio or video question or comment, and send it to imoreshow@mobilenations.com. Like, now!

Apple it seems has added a new way to give them money in Germany by adding PayPal as a method of payment at the online store. First reported by Macerkopf.de, PayPal now sits alongside the regular credit card payments for purchases from the German store.

So far it doesn't seem to have spread any further than this. 9to5Mac reports that they've yet to see it in any locations they've checked, and we've also confirmed that the payment method does not appear yet in the UK or France. The Apple payment help page for the German store also confirms that customers will not be required to add PayPal as a preferred payment method to their Apple ID, instead completing the checkout process via the PayPal website.

So, it could be the start of a wider roll out, or it might just be for German folks. We'll wait and see, but in the meantime if you're seeing the new payment method in your country, be sure to drop us a line in the comments and tell us where you are.

Source: Macerkopf.de, 9to5Mac

Enter to win a free trip for two to the TM13 launch party in NYC - visit MobileNations.com/tm13 and sign up for email updates! It's just that easy!

For the past month or so, we've been teasing you about our new online event, code-named #TM13. That ends next week, when we officially announce the event, and tell you all about it. In the meantime, here's one last tease:

The tease

If you liked our old Smartphone Round Robins -- where there editors of Android Central, CrackBerry, iMore, and Windows Phone Central stopped being platform champions for a month, switched devices, and shared our thoughts -- you're going to love #TM13. It takes that conversation to the next level.

The party

While TM13 is an online event, we're going to celebrate the kick off with a real-life party. We'll provide the full details and open up RSVPs next week, but it'll be held the evening of June 6th and it'll be held in New York City!

If you're in NYC, you'll really want to be there. It's going to be a night to remember -- the first time we've ever held a cross-site Mobile Nations meet-up with all of our site editors in attendance!

The contest

If you're not in NYC, we're going to give you the chance to win a free trip for two so you can still be there!

To enter, all you need to do is head on over to mobilenations.com/tm13 and signup for #TM13 updates. If you've already signed up, you're already entered, what could be easier?

Once TM13 is revealed next week, we'll be announcing the winner of the trip the next day so we can get it booked ASAP!

That's it for now! I've said too much already! I'll just leave you with this -- hurry up and enter!

• Sign up to enter now!

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