In two report back in April and July of last year, we reported that Apple was working on an ultra-thin 15-inch Mac notebook, with the suggestion being that the existing MacBook Pro line would evolve to take design cues and many of the features from the popular MacBook Air. But whether the larger notebooks would be branded as MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs has been unclear.

As an Android user, there are many reasons why you might like to check out the goings-on of Apple’s rivaling App Store. Although apps are often released contemporaneously on the two leading OSes, iOS tends to get priority on the major releases, leaving many an Android user to gaze longingly at App Store gems such as Instagram

After a couple of issues with some software updates, Apple has made some quiet revisions to address the problems. The first was a Snow Leopard security update which inadvertently caused problems with Apple's PowerPC emulation layer Rosetta. Macworld notes that Apple has since released Security Update 2012-001, version 1.1 for Snow Leopard.

Apple today released OS X 10.7.3, the third maintenance update to OS X Lion. The update is available via Software Update and Apple's download pages.

Research firm Strategy Analytics today announced its estimates of the global smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, finding that Apple narrowly squeezed by Samsung to retake the title of world's largest smartphone vendor as measured by unit shipments. According to Strategy Analytics' numbers, Apple's 37 million iPhones narrowly eclipsed Samsung's quarterly smartphone shipments of 36.5 million units. Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “While Apple took the top spot in smartphones on a quarterly basis, Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011

Not even the two outgoing CEOs of RIM would argue that the company's ill-fated BlackBerry PlayBook tablet was a success. In fact, as far as tech flops go we'd argue that it's right up there with the HP TouchPad.

In a move which is sure to draw comparisons to the Cydia store which exists on jailbroken iOS devices; tablets and phones running the Android operating system are set to get an unofficial application store which will be home to all of the applications which have been rejected or banned by Google, as well as modifications and custom ROMs. The iOS App Store is notorious for being tightly monitored by Apple, with the Cupertino company having the last say over what gets accepted for sale. Finding software which is available for Android devices outside of the official marketplace has never been..

If the speculation is to be believed, then Apple has plans in place to adopt and support the new 802.11ac specification across Airport base stations, Time Capsules, Apple TV, Notebooks and potentially the company’s range of mobile devices. Continue reading this article at RedmondPie.com

The third party application store, Cydia, has achieved phenomenal success in the relatively short time it has been existence. Obviously, the success of any sales platform is predominantly down to these consumers who use it day in and day out, without those people who require additional tweaks and utilities on their devices, it simply wouldn't exist.

In the past 5 years, Apple's push into the enterprise has been led by the iPhone and the iPad. Corporate IT departments, long dominated by the BlackBerry, are becoming more receptive to iOS products, especially when users are given the choice about which platform to use. In addition to iOS driving up Apple's sales -- accounting for some two-thirds of Apple's revenue in fact -- iOS's corporate success is driving enterprise adoption of the Mac.