Macgasm

Twelve South has released a new BookArc for the MacBook Pro today. The stand comes in at $49.99 and takes its cue from the MacBook Air edition that provides a more customized and snuggly fit stand, along with cable management options.

We’re not exactly sure what the motivation was to do away with the one size fits all model previously offered, and instead release a case by case stand for the MacBook lineup, but I have to say, I have the previous version and it looks absolutely gorgeous on my desk next to my Cinema display.

Some people say it’s expensive for a stand. I say it’s a necessity for any MacBook (MacBook, Pro, or Air) user’s arsenal. I’m not just saying that either — I honestly have one and love it (just in case you didn’t believe me previously).

Just when we started wondering what was going on over at RIM this week, we hear news that RIM has abruptly ceased work on the Playbook 2. The reason for its early demise? RIM’s very first QNX powered BlackBerry ‘Superphone.’ We’re guessing that Superphone has to do with the specifications, and not RIM marketshare at this point.

N4BB, the blog that broke the news, is also reporting that RIM has shifted some resources within the company, and they plan on pushing forward on their LTE 4G PlayBook pretty heavily in the upcoming months. Release is scheduled for October.

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How many times have you done it? Stuck something in your calendar, forgotten to add a reminder alert and missed an important event. Never fear, because now iOS beta 2 is here.

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Somehow this one slipped through the cracks for us, but thankfully AgileBits just let us know in a newsletter that 1Password is now compatible with Lion, and that you can easily add enable the 1Password extension in Safari 5.1. Apparently we’ve been able to install the extension since the end of May, so if you’ve yet to get 1Password running in Lion, think of this as a reminder to get your update on.

Another snippet of interesting news that came out of today’s newsletter is that the AgileBits gang has also begun a transition to drop support for Leopard and older operating systems. Starting with 1Password, 3.6 AgileBits will require Lion or Snow Leopard as the operating system of choice.

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Just when you thought you had your finger on the pulse of iPhone 5 rumors, an analyst decides to mess things up, again. Seriously, keeping up with these super-connected analysts is becoming a job in and of itself. Anywho, according to BMO Capital’s Keith Backman, Apple is going to continue to offer a severely discounted iPhone when the new iPhone is released in September, but, instead of pushing the products down the line, the iPhone 4 will be discontinued, and the iPhone 3GS will remain as Apple’s cheap option.

Up until this point Apple has been pushing previous generations down the line and into the discounted bin. When the iPhone 3GS was released, the iPhone 3G was offered cheaply, and then when the iPhone 4 was released, the iPhone 3GS took the iPhone 3G’s place on the list. But that’s where it’s going to end. The iPhone 3GS may be slated to remain in the cheap slot for the time being.

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Last week’s Snow Leopard update brought Apple’s current Mac OS to version number 10.6.8 and brought us a few new features and bug fixes. Besides that, it apparently also brought a problem for Xserve users — the much dreaded performance issue.

On Apple’s Support Communities website, the thread about this problem keeps growing as more and more people experience the problem with the Mac OS X Server-exclusive hardware monitoring daemon called hwmond. After the update, this process reportedly uses up to 100 percent of the Mac’s CPU, which sounds like a teeny-tiny problem.

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It’s pretty obvious that a lot of people are unhappy with Final Cut Pro X, and while we don’t agree with most of the crying, there are some pretty legitimate reasons why someone might not be so happy with the software package.

It turns out that Apple may be starting to do something about all of those unhappy customers — Apple is offering refunds to those who have filled out complaints using the Mac App Store Customer Service form.

Reports are surfacing online that some customers have been about to get a full refund, despite Apple’s sales policy that “All sales are final.”

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Dave Caolo of TUAW and 52 Tiger fame has written up a great post about child-proofing iOS devices.

Apple has put many security measures in place to protect against things like exposing children to mature content and allowing them to make in-app purchasing.

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