by Paul Miller,
We just nabbed one of Apple's new button-free iPod shuffles, and in case you were wondering: yes, it's really small. We're gonna play around a bit with the VoiceOver navigation and get you our full impressions in a few, but at first glance we think this is totally usable, especially for the shuffle's sweaty target demographic. Also: it's really small.

Gallery: New iPod shuffle first hands-on

engadget.com

by Paul Miller,
Wowsers, that little App Store side project Apple has going on sure doesn't seem to be settling down. After launching in July of '08 and hitting 100 million downloads in September, the App Store has just crossed the 500 million download mark -- a mere six months after opening. Compare that to the iTunes Music Store, which took two whole years to cross the 500 million mark, though to be fair we have little idea of the paid to free ratio of app downloads. There are over 15,000 apps in the App Store currently, and sure, 14,500 of them are crap, with the rest being tip calculators, but we gotta hand it to Apple for pretty much unprecedented success in the mobile download space -- now let us download SNES emulators!

[Thanks, Richard]

engadget.com

by Laura June,
People trading in salacious gossip have been counting on an update of the Mac mini for ages now, with most of the rumors centering on it making its appearance at Macworld. Well, the festivities came and went without a peep about the mini -- but that hasn't stopped the rumors from swirling. The latest we're hearing is that the refresh will be built upon NVIDIA's new Ion platform, which houses a 9400M GPU -- the same graphics processor as the new unibody Macbooks -- and could mean an even minier mini than the one we already know. Tom's Hardware, the source of this newest rumor, also speculates on a March release date, though they're not guessing on the price just yet.

engadget.com

By matt buchanan,
Gadget Lab writer and Giz friend Brian X. Chen reveals via Twitter that Apple "is suing Wired for my video tutorial on hacking netbooks to run Mac OS X."

Brian actually loaned his personal MSI Wind Hackintosh for the Giz Gallery. It seems more likely that Apple is actually sending Wired a cease-and-desist rather than asking for money—telling them to pull the tutorial, which explicitly lays out step by step how to put OS X on a netbook, including trips to The Pirate Bay to get the software, diving into the notebook's guts and other grisly details in a fantastic, super-complete guide to Hackintoshing a netbook.

We'll update with more details as we get them.

gizmodo.com

by Chris Ziegler,
Okay, so maybe a new browser isn't the first thing we'd like to see replaced with some fresh thinking out of the App Store -- that honor probably goes to the email client, preferably with something that could rival the G1's capabilities -- but regardless, Apple's infamous "duplication of functionality" argument has hamstrung iPhone developers from even coming close to stepping on the mothership's toes from day one. Consistent application of policy is still at a premium when it comes to getting iPhone apps approved, it seems -- it's hit or miss, and as best as we can tell, a happy ending involves the crossing of fingers and getting a reviewer inside Apple who's having a good day. It looks like Apple's slowly and quietly tweaking its game in response to complaints, though, with MacRumors noting that a slew of browsers have gone on sale in the past day; some of these things have submission dates several months old, so it seems like they've been holding in some sort of purgatory while Steve and the gang debate the merits of letting programmers actually practice their trade in peace. Odds are none of these initial entries will hold up to Safari for good, old-fashioned browsing, but more importantly, this might just open up the door for Opera and others to get in on the game.

Update: As it turns out, all these new browsers are WebKit-based, so while things do appear to be changing, we wouldn't hold out hope for an iPhone edition of Mobile IE just yet.

engadget.com

by Nilay Patel,
Man, that PowerVR mobile graphics core must be some hot stuff -- hot on the heels of Apple's $5M investment into developer Imagination Technologies, Intel's upped its own investment in the company to 3.04 percent. That's not quite as much as Apple's 3.6 percent stake, but Intel seems ready to commit -- it also filed a statement with the London Stock Exchange saying it might try and acquire all of Imagination if it thinks another company is on the prowl. Of course, Apple and Intel are like, besties, so maybe it'll all work out, but we'll see whose letter jacket Imagination shows up to homeroom in next week.

www.engadget.com

by Tim Stevens,
Apple's claims that the iPhone is a console might carry a bit more weight if the thing had, you know, some physical inputs. Touchscreens and tilt sensors are great, but without at least a couple of buttons and a D-pad it's kind of a hard sell to your average gamer. Inputs are exactly what the iControlPad case for the iPhone adds, and we've got confirmation that the thing is at long last heading to production. The pic above is the final prototype, set to be colored black upon release -- and we presume those gaping holes will be filled with something other than air, too. No word on an anticipated ship date or price, but -- great as it may be -- without Apple support we don't expect it'll to do much to help the iPhone's gaming cred anyhow.

www.engadget.com