Update: Yes, managing apps from iTunes is every bit as magical as we expected. The update is free to iPhone users and iPod touch users who’ve already shelled out the big bucks for OS 3. If you own a touch and you’ve held off, however, your patience has paid off — the upgrade now only costs you $4.95. Huzzah!

Ready to pay more for the same music? Good! We’ve just spotted some new “Deluxe Version” albums in iTunes, which apparently are part of the “iTunes LP” experience in the upcoming iTunes 9, if the album blurbs are to be believed. The albums pack in bonus material like art, videos and additional recordings. Sounds just like Cocktail to us, and we’re sure Apple will be explaining it all soon enough.

Update: It’s more or less official now, complete with a non-working “Download iTunes 9″ button and everything. Apple’s mainly touting the new interface for the store in this blurb, but we know it’s just a front for taking more of our hard-earned cash and putting it in the hands of starving musicians. The nerve.

New features mentioned:
Improved store navigation, including persistent navigation menu.
Full window iTunes store. For times when that sidebar is just too much.
Previews from anywhere in the store — don’t have to drill down to preview.
iTunes LP includes lyrics, liner notes, video, photos and “more.”
iTunes Extras. It’s like DVD extras, but with iTunes. Not clear if it includes director’s commentaries, but let’s hope.
Update 2: It’s now official, and Apple has fleshed out some more functionality.
Genius Mixes. It’s like Genius Playlists, but it plays forever like a radio station.
App management, letting you set up and arrange your home screens on the iPhone and iPod touch. You can drag and drop to move certain apps or whole pages of apps.
Home sharing enables file transfers between up to five local computers of songs, videos and even apps.
You can send items in the iTunes Store as gifts, add them to a wishlist, and publish them to Facebook and Twitter — look who’s getting all social all of a sudden!
It’s available today.

by : Paul Miller

Well, it’s not September, but we’re not going to hold an early launch of its performance-focused Snow Leopard OS against Apple. The Apple store has come back online bearing an order page for OS X version 10.6 in Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Pro… oh wait, it’s just $29 as an upgrade from 10.5. August 28th, that’s when, now go ‘n get it.

While you wait for that order to ship, Apple wants you to know that Snow Leopard’s Finder is more responsive, Mail loads messages twice as fast, Time Machine will complete initial backups 80 percent faster, and a 64-bit version of Safari 4 is 50 percent faster than its predecessors. There’s even QuickTime X with a redesigned player that lets users view, record, trim and share video. Of course, this release also includes Grand Central Dispatch, a new way for devs to take advantage of multi-core processors as well as OpenCL support to accelerate apps with the help of that idling graphics processor. Oh, and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange too. All in all, a worthy update, especially for the price.

P.S. Requires Intel-based Mac.

If you love TUAW, iPhones, and apps (and let’s be honest… you do), then today should be filled with wonderment and excitement. Why you ask? Because our homeboys and girls over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog have released their very own iPhone app — and it’s pretty darn slick. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get to downloading it right now. It’s what Steve Jobs would want you to do.

Mac Partition Data Recovery software is an advanced Apple Macintosh based recovery utility, which can deliver the best possible recovery results in repartitioned Mac drives. Its highly intensive scan engine rigorously searches for your lost partitions, enables reconstruction of the same and affirms data integrity in the found volumes.

For some photographers and digital musician you can use Mac Photo Recovery software. Disk Doctors  Photo recovery software is a robust utility with support for recovery of all standard digital photographic image file formats, almost all types of professional digital camera RAW images, several video file formats and most commonly used music file formats. You can download and evaluate the free demo version, which gives a fair idea about the chances of recovery that full version might deliver.

So, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that Qik for iPhone 3GS is now available, and it’s completely gratis to download. The bad news is that it probably won’t do exactly what you want it to. You see, those on Symbian S60 have grown used to a Qik that can actually stream live video to the internet, whereas this app is currently just a “capture and upload” piece. Moreover, it only works via WiFi, so if you’re not near a hotspot once your video is done, you’ll have to wait until you wander back over to one before it automatically begins uploading. Though, you can let the app automatically inform viewers of where the video was taken (in case you feel like pampering guests who show up unannounced), and you can also frame the video horizontally or vertically. The Qik team assures us that an update is in the works to add 3G uploading, but for now, it’s WiFi or bust. Which is kosher so long as it’s free… we guess.

By : Darren Murph

Palm itself had warned that the Pre’s iTunes sync functionality could be broken at a moment’s notice (and at Apple’s whim), but we’re pretty sure no one expected it’d happen this quickly. We’ve been able to confirm that version 8.2.1 of the software prevents the sync from working, meaning that you’ve got to add music the old-fashioned way — the Pre functions as a USB drive, too — until Palm gets around to patching the hack (if they decide to patch it, that is). This could end up being a protracted game of cat-and-mouse, which is entertaining to watch but nightmarish for the consumers down in the trenches actually trying to use this stuff. Funny thing is, Apple’s straight up saying in its release notes that the update “addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices” — in other words, they weren’t being verified before, and now they are, thank goodness. Peaceful sleep is once again within our reach.

Update: Apple’s now gone beyond the “verification of Apple devices” phrase, calling out the Pre by name in a statement issued to BusinessWeek: “It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.” In other words, “we told you this was going to happen, and it did.” For its part, Palm appears to have re-issued the same statement it made a while back, saying that Apple’s move is a “direct blow” to its users. Words are one thing, but here’s the real question: is there a quick counterstrike fix planned from Palm’s side?

By : Chris Ziegler

Yes, it seems like only yesterday (or about 3 months ago) that Apple crossed a landmark — 1 billion apps downloaded from its App Store — and here we are again. Apple’s just issued a press release stating that it’s now seen another half a billion apps downloaded in about three months — putting them over the 1.5 billion mark. Apple doesn’t get all the kudos to themselves, though: after all, someone’s been downloading The Moron Test. A lot.

By : Laura June