When a pair of rugged adventurists decides to trek 700km across a frozen lake in Siberia, chronicle the expedition in a daily blog complete with photos and videos — and share it all on the Internet — it should come as no surprise when Apple hardware and software features prominently among their gear. Vašek Sůra and

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Section: Macintosh / Apple Hardware , Laptops , MacBook Air , MacBook , MacBook Pro , Peripherals , Cases / Bags , Features , Contests and Giveaways A few months ago, the fine people at Saddleback Leather provided us with a medium laptop case for review. Now they’re extending that generosity to you by allowing us to give it away to one of our readers. This is 100% waterproof full grain boot leather with a high density Neoprene padding, and is valued at $265. It’s lightly used, but as is the case with all quality leather products, we like to refer to it as being “broken in.” If you read my review (all pieces covered in the review are included in the giveaway) but didn’t get your order in for the Saddleback Leather laptop case, this may be your last chance. Saddleback Leather has discontinued their laptop case line, directing portable computer users towards their line of thin briefcases , instead. Good thing we’ve made winning this one easy to do. To enter, just follow these three easy steps: Read the Saddleback Leather Laptop Case Contest Rules . Make sure you’re registered with Appletell and logged in. Leave us a comment below on this page , not on the contest rules page. Doesn’t matter what you say, just tell us hello if you want to. That’s all there is to it. Entries will be accepted from March 8th through March 21st. The winner will be randomly selected from all qualified entries, and will be notified by March 28th.

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The folks over at Kotaku have really stumbled upon a gem. Twelve shots of the first game made specifically for the iPad have been released. The game is called Zen Bound 2, and the publishing company is regarding it as a "sequel and a revision" of the original iPhone game. The new game will include tons of new levels, more music and graphics that will exhibit the iPad’s capabilities as a gaming platform. According to a press release sent to Kotaku: "The graphical fidelity on the iPad far improves on the critically acclaimed visuals of the first game – the surfaces are brimming with detail, vivid colors and subdued tones." The game is expected will be available in the App Store around the same time as the iPad. We’ve included some of the photos below, but you can see the rest here .

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It’s official: Apple will begin selling iPads on Saturday, April 3rd, with pre-orders beginning on March 12.  Sales will be done through “selected Authorized Retailers.” Note: this is for the basic Wi-Fi model.  The 3G ‘Pad is promised for late April, but the House of Jobs doesn’t have a date set in concrete yet.  This is also for the USA release: elsewhere in the world, both the Wi-Fi and 3G’s have the “late April” disclaimer.  Also, the Wi-Fi pad can be reserved online, and picked up at your nearest mall’s Apple Store. (Speaking of which: feel free to share any stories/photos of store feeding frenzies you might encounter…) App availability — not to mention how many devices are hitting the retail channels on Day One — are not known at this time.  

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Filed under: Apple , iPad Dear Aunt TUAW, I am planning on getting an iPad WiFi+3G when they become available, but I am still undecided on which (storage) size I should get. I currently have a 16GB iPhone 3GS which comfortably, for now, holds all my media needs. While I have a lot of music and photos and some video I don’t feel the need to have it all on my phone at one time. Looking at what I store on my iPhone I think an iPad 32GB would more than fit my needs — but will my media files be larger on the iPad with the larger format of the device? I don’t expect that my iTunes songs will take up anymore than they do on the iPhone, but will the format of pictures and video take up more storage space? With AT&T increasing the download size limit over 3G it got me wondering if 32GB on the iPad will be more like a 16GB iPhone. At this point I would be deciding between the 32GB and 64GB. Just wondering if the $100 price difference would be better spent buying the 32GB and putting the $100 toward a year’s worth of 3G connectivity? Love, kissies & hugs, Your nephew, RJ Continue reading Dear Aunt TUAW: Does size matter (when it comes to iPads)?

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Since when did Gordon Freeman become a Mac head? Actually, he’s apparently just hiding Valve’s really big secret. Tuaw , MacNN and MacRumors are all investigating the purpose behind the Valve-plus-Apple teaser images in their inboxes. Could it be that Valve is bringing the best of PC gaming over to the Mac? The rumor is that Valve has some sort of huge Mac announcement to make this week, though Mac news outlets everywhere are trying to pinpoint what exactly the announcement will entail. Will it be the release of a Mac OS X version of Steam? Will it be an epic port over of every Valve title known to man? Or is Portal 2 going to be released for both the PC and the Mac?  Over here at Mac|Life headquarters, we’d be incredibly happy to hear that any of these scenarios could turn into reality. After all, do you know what this means ? Frag fests with your best buddies still chained to their loud, unchic Windows computers, and more ways to utilize that Nvidia graphics processor in your iMac or MacBook Pro. Check below for a look at the photos in question, head over to the sources for a closer look, and let us know what you think in the comments! We really love this one: Image source: MacNN

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Filed under: Apple , Developer , iPhone , App Store Since the early days of the App Store, it’s been a virtual Wild West out there — people can release apps that do whatever they can imagine, from a virtual cowbell to a mirror , silly as the functionality may be. Still, there has always been a (very low) hurdle for the least an app can do; once again, Apple has rejected an app for the reason of “minimal user functionality.” To be clear, despite what you may be reading elsewhere , this is not a new rule , but one developer thought that his rejection under a long-standing reviewer’s option was a reason to raise a little heck. The creator of the just-rejected app (which, for the record, shows a picture of a duck and makes the iPhone quack like a duck) emailed TechCrunch looking for a little justice, and all he got from them was sarcasm. We don’t have anything he’ll want to hear, either: with hundreds of thousands of applications in the store, Apple is entitled to use its veto power on the non-functional apps. And so far, that’s a good thing for consumers like us. Deleting apps for sexual content is one thing, but deleting apps for lacking all redeeming value is another. Of course, the standards are just as sticky (what if someone really does need a quacking sound?), but at least someone at Apple does have a standard somewhere in terms of making an app serve a purpose. I don’t mind the sex apps (and I think an Explicit category is the right way to go), but I would appreciate Apple stepping up the line on quality, especially now that the store is full of great apps already. Developer quacks about ‘minimal user functionality,’ but it’s not a new rule originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Developer quacks about ‘minimal user functionality,’ but it’s not a new rule originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can keep the new 14.6MP Pentax K-7 down–tight weather seals and low noise at high ISOs ensure that if you have the chops, this camera will deliver no matter what the conditions. The K-7 retains much of the great feature set of its predecessor, the K-20 (5 out of 5 stars, Dec/08), with a few additions. It now sports a brilliant 3-inch LCD viewscreen, 5.2-frames-per-second continuous shooting, 1/8000-second shutter speed, and a whisper-quiet shutter. Its innards are protected by a weather-resistant body, and HD video capture has been added. All fine improvements. Redesigned (and repositioned) controls also make the camera handle like an ergonomic dream. Most are now logically grouped to the right of the LCD. Playback and delete buttons have been moved below the mode dial, where they’re within easy reach of the left thumb, and the Exposure Value (EV) compensation button is now next to the shutter-release button (for lightning-fast, forefinger access), instead of being buried in the camera’s back. We frequently used the EV button to improve image quality by varying exposures on extremely dark or bright scenes. While you can set the camera to bracket exposures, using EV compensation is faster and more precise. In its new location, we could now easily access the EV button–thumbing the control to change values without removing our eye from the viewfinder. Pentax’s K-7 offers weather seals and an ultrafast 1/8000 shutter speed. The K-7 draws power from a new, more powerful Li-ion battery, and we took nearly 900 shots (about a quarter of them with the camera’s built-in flash) before it required recharging. Up to and including ISO 1600, image quality at all megapixel settings–14.6, 10, 6, and 2–was virtually noiseless with excellent color accuracy. Output up to 13×19 inches on an Epson R2880 was also sharp and clean

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I’m always on the lookout for photography tools that are easy-to-use and help me turn good photos into great ones. Nik Software’s Sharpener Pro 3 ($199.95), a plug-in for Aperture, Lightroom and Photoshop, does just that, which is probably why I find myself utilizing it pretty much any time I do a photo shoot. With two sharpening

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Section: Mac Software , Home and Personal , Miscellaneous / Other , Reviews Provides: Template based database creation and management Format: Digital download or CD Developer: FileMaker, Inc. Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.7, 867MHz PowerPC G4/G5 or Intel processor, 512MB RAM, CD drive Processor Compatibility: Universal Price: $49.00 single user, $99.00 family pack Availability: Out now Version Reviewed: 3.0.2 I’m the target audience for Bento 3, and that makes this a fairly easy review to write. I love having database functionality at my disposal, but I’ve never wanted to bother with learning FileMaker just to keep track of my CD collection, family recipes or the Appletell writing staff. More importantly, I didn’t want to pay for the functionality of FileMaker when I knew I wouldn’t use it beyond 20% of its capabilities. So, I’d end up buying multiple proprietary database programs. One for tracking movies and CDs. One for books. One for recipes.

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