iPad Live has merged Transformers-style with iPhone Live and our newer, better, badasser all news, all how-tos iPhone and iPad Live combined podcast can now be found on Wednesday nights at 9pm ET. But what to do with our traditional Sunday slot then? Why an all-new, all awesome podcast devoted to the latest and greatest apps and accessories! So join us tonight for a brand new episode of Apps & Accessories Live!

What, you had something else planned? Pfft!

Place: www.imore.com/live

Time: 9pm ET, 6pm PT, 2am GMT.

(ZEN and TECH will be on Wednesday tonight, but you’ll really want to join us for the announcement of our big Xbox Kinect giveaway! Spoiler alert!)

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, just leave them in the comments then come be part of the show!

Want to watch via iPhone or iPad? Grab the Ustream app and search for “mobilenations”!

This is it iMore nation, your last chance to enter our big Jawbone JAMBOX and a $200 iTunes gift card giveaways. If you haven’t already, you really need to run — not walk — and enter now. It’s super easy to do, just friend iMore on Facebook and subscribe to iMore on YouTube and you’re in.

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What are you waiting for? This is not a drill! There are only 12 hours left! Deploy! Deploy! Deploy!

And when you’re done, leave a comment telling us you’re done so we know to look for you. Do it now, for the love of all that’s good and holy — before Rene sings again!!

Sounds like Google has hired away Simon Prakash, formerly Apple’s senior director of product integrity, to work on a “secret project” deep in the heart of the Googleplex. Reports VentureBeat:

Simon Prakash worked at Apple for more than eight years and was most recently the senior director of product integrity at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page. That means he was responsible for product quality across all of Apple’s products, from iPhones to Macs. Apple has the best reputation for product quality, according to consumer satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power.

The hiring is notable for a couple of reasons. First, Apple and Google had an infamous no-poaching pact in place for many years, a gentlemanly if potentially actionable agreement not to actively solicit or hire each other’s talent. The U.S. Justice Department is still investigating the arrangement on the grounds it unfairly limited employee work options and compensation. Combined with the strains in Apple and Google’s relationship, that agreement seems no longer to be in place.

Second, it shows Google is continuing to evolve into a company that values design and polish as much as features and engineering. The knock on Google used to be that their stuff worked great but wasn’t much to look at — that it felt designed by committee and that no one had tried using it before it shipped. Over the last year they’ve given facelifts to all their major online properties, and it looks like they’re only getting started.

With Prakash’s hire, the burning question is, what “secret project” will he be working on? He’s a hardware guy in a company that’s so far been content to let partners like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola make all their hardware. Google is in the process of buying Motorola, but claims they’ll be running it as a separate business. Merely helping oversee the quality of partner hardware doesn’t seem that “secret” however.

With co-founder Sergei Brin running all sorts of experimental initiatives over at Google, it really doesn’t have to be phones or tablets — it could be flying saucers. But everyone’s going to think it’s phones and tablets, right?

Source: VentureBeat

Keeping track of your money, investments and other financial matters can be time consuming; if you do it all on paper. Smart phones mean that you can do a lot more with your cell phone plans then just call around; apps make just about anything possible. New apps for the iPhone are letting anyone maintain good records regardless of where they are.

Knowing where your money goes is the first step in reliable fiscal management. Let these apps show you the way.

1. BillMinder

BillMinder is designed to keep you from missing bills or paying them late. It keeps track of your bills, whether you have paid them or not, and lets you know how much is due each month. With additional features such as a calculator, notifications, Email based restore and backup and the ability to synch with other devices using iOS, this program will help you stay on top of your bills no matter where you might be.

BillMinder is available on App Store for $1.99.

2. iReconcile

Knowing when you have to pay bills is the first step towards financial success. The next thing you want to do is keep track of all of your money. With iReconcile you can manage your money from your iPhone. The program is easy to use and is based upon the popular Checkbook app.

With iReconcile you will easily see where your money is going every month. You can set it to rollover any money left at the end of one month into the next. Track your balances on any revolving debt you carry. Have up to the minute information so you never spend more than is available. With this app on your phone, you won’t have to remember to enter information when you get home, you can do it no matter where you are.

iReconcile is available on App Store for $2.99.

Tipulator

Now that you have some idea of where your money is going and how much you have, it is time to head out on the town. Even the best mathematician can be overwhelmed when trying to calculate a tip, figure out their share of a complex bill and so forth. With Tipulator, a simple yet elegant app, you won’t need to do the math in your head. Set the tipping percentage and it will give you both that and the total cost.

An additional way to make use of Tipulator is to have it calculate how much each person at the table owes. Simply enter the total and the tip and let it figure out how much each person needs to put in. There are even several ways to calculate how you want to pay, share or tip.

Tipulator is available on App Store for $0.99.

4. Bloomberg

Keeping an eye on your investments and potential investments has never been so easy. With the Bloomberg iPhone app you can keep an eye on the markets, select specific stocks to watch and see everything in a variety of formats. Whether you prefer charts or graphs, want to read up on new, quotes or company descriptions, it is all at your fingertips. Your investment strategy is only as good as your information; use Bloomberg and rest easy.

Bloomberg is available on App Store for free.

5. Loan Shark

Sooner or later just about everyone is going to have to borrow money. Whether it is a mortgage, money for a car or even a credit card, knowing your options and being able to pick the best terms can save you thousands over the life of the loan. The Loan Shark app gives you the information you need to pick the best choice for your needs. With plenty of data about the conditions of any loan type, Loan Shark lets you calculate everything; the total you will pay back, monthly or yearly payments and even lets you graph principle versus interest in a flash.

Loan Shark is available on App Store for $2.99.

The best financial strategy is to get out of debt and save as much as possible. Download the apps and make this a reality. These 5 financial apps for the iPhone will help you to stay on top of your money, and get the most out of it every day.

This is a guest article by EJ Parfitt, a freelance writer for many sites including Cell Phone Expert.

This article, 5 Great Financial Apps for iPhone, was originally published at simonblog.com.

The past is past! A report from Daiwa Securities suggests that the new iPhone will be unveiled at WWDC (Worldwide Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco this year. The A4 devices (3, 3GS and 4) were also revealed at the same event in the past years.

The announcement in June would make sense as iPhone 4 users will be eligible for a two-year upgrade on their devices this summer. However, the iPhone 4S users would be disappointed as they won’t be eligible this early. They might also see this as an injustice as it will not be the usual 12 month interval between two iPhone models. But it will give the fruit company an edge in the sense that those eligible for the update would think again before switching over to the Android handsets to be released near that time.

The report also informed about “glass to glass” touch panel technology for the new iPhone and the suppliers would be TPK Holding and Wintek. With the former occupying 85% of the manufacturing load. Though there has been no official announcement yet, a leaked calender from Moscone Center points suggests June 10-15 as it shows a corporate meeting schedule.

The iPhone 5 expected to have a 4 inch display, a quad-core A6 processor and NFC. Apple enjoyed good success through the October launch of the iPhone 4S even though people buy an iPhone whenever it’s released. But the ideal shopping time is during the holiday season. Let’s see what they decide.

(via DigiTimes)

This article, Rumor: iPhone 5 May Be Launched At WWDC 2012, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Our challenge this week was to find an app that could capture a still image — a photo — while simultaneously shooting video on the iPhone. With the default camera app, you have to stop recording video, switch to still camera mode, shoot a picture, then switch back to video and start recording that. Not ideal. Neither is trying to screen capture while recording, since there are way too many controls visible, cutting into the picture.

With over half a million apps for just about everything, you’d figure there’d have to be at least one in the App Store for this. But with so many apps, it can be hard to find the one you want. That’s where we come in. We’re sorting through the App Store and we’re going to help find just exactly the app for that.

App for that: QuickPix

QuickPix does exactly what Ron is looking for. While filming a video, QuickPix has two buttons: one to stop recording, and one to take a photo. These photos are sent directly to your camera roll along with the video once you end the recording.

Some other features of QuickPick are RapidFire (2 pictures per second), QuickPic (shoot on app launch), and the ability to separately set the focus and exposure.

Now that I have discovered QuickPix, I will use it for all filming I do from now on. There have been multiple times where I had to choose between capturing video or taking photos of a special moment, but now I can do both! Thank you, Ron, for sending me on the hunt for this app!

• $1.99 – App Store link

Thanks to Ron – Ertiguy for the question. Anyone else have any App for That suggestions for Ron? Let him — and all of us — know in the comments below.

Having trouble finding what you need in the app store? Head on over to our App for That Forum and let us know what you’re looking for. The iMore community will do our best to find you just the right App for That!

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, and whether you’re cheering for the New England Patriots or the New York Giants, it’s easy to follow all the action right on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. You can stay up to date while away from home and on the road, or get all sorts of extra information while you’re watching live.

NFL Live for Verizon iPhone

If you have an iPhone on Verizon, you can take advantage of their exclusive NFL Mobile app to stream Super Bowl XLVI straight to your mobile device. It’s a universal app, though it doesn’t specifically say that live video will also be streamed to the iPad version, so if you want to be absolutely certain you see it, keep your iPhone handy. Both versions should give you the latest news, videos, as well as all the information you need to stay in the big game.

• Free – App Store link

NFL.com Super Bowl XLVI site

The NFL also has a full site up for Super Bowl 46, complete with history, events, visitors guides, live feeds, trivia, and much, much more. The mobile experience won’t quite be up to that of the desktop — which is why they made the apps — but if you want to make sure you’ve got everything covered, launch Safari on log onto NFL.com. And if you’re not on Verizon and need to watch live, you can do so from here with your Mac or Windows PC.

• Web site link

Super Bowl XLVI Guide

The official NFL Super Bowl 46 guide app will keep you up to date with maps, local happenings, and more. Whether you’ll be attending the big game in person or watching from the comfort of your home, the Super Bowl XLVI Guide is the best way to navigate through the multitude of Super Bowl events and and keep up with all the social media buzz that’s sure to be generated by millions and millions of fans.

Super Bowl XLVI Guide is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and is available in the App Store now.

• Free – App Store Link

Super Bowl XLVI Commemorative App for iPad

By NFL Magazine, the Super Bowl 46 commemorative app for iPad brings you the full story of how the New England Patriots and New York Giants made it to the big game, key stats, and bonus features like video, interviews, stadium shots, and more.

• $2.99 – App Store link

More Football is More

If that’s not still not enough Football for you, you can also check out our Top 5 NFL Football apps for iPhone. Whether you’re interested in play by play commentary or managing your fantasy leagues, we’ve got you covered.

Now here’s the big question — come tomorrow, who’s going to win?

Following up on the information iMore received yesterday on potential ZFS hooks in iOS 5.1, a reliable source let us know that Apple has been investing heavily in ZFS appliances from Oracle. (Whether or not this will be made public is unknown; it doesn’t seem to be right now.)

Also, several of our readers familiar with ZFS wrote in to speculate as to why Apple may be exploring ZFS for use on iPhone and iPad. Broadly, it may have something to do with ZFS’ snapshot technology. ZFS snapshots can be easily compressed and encrypted, de-duplicated, and can transfer delta (bit differential) updates between cloud and device. The snapshots can also work like Time Machine, easily and efficiently providing incremental backup and restore capability from an hour ago, a day ago, a week ago, or more, asynchronously and block by block. Here’s what Wikipedia says about ZFS snapshots:

An advantage of copy-on-write is that when ZFS writes new data, the blocks containing the old data can be retained, allowing a snapshot version of the file system to be maintained. ZFS snapshots are created very quickly, since all the data composing the snapshot is already stored; they are also space efficient, since any unchanged data is shared among the file system and its snapshots.

Writeable snapshots (“clones”) can also be created, resulting in two independent file systems that share a set of blocks. As changes are made to any of the clone file systems, new data blocks are created to reflect those changes, but any unchanged blocks continue to be shared, no matter how many clones exist. This is an implementation of the Copy-on-write principle.

Snapshots is only one of the features of ZFS (Zettabyte Files System), the advanced file system created by Sun, now owned by Oracle. Apple included a partial port of ZFS in earlier versions of Mac OS X but pulled it before the official release. It’s a file system particularly well suited for cloud environments and storage pools, which might be why Apple is looking at it again in the post iCloud.

Apple is an incredibly private company that works hard behind the scenes in order to present a beautifully packaged, highly polished product to consumers. No doubt there is a lot of really cool, really geeky technology at the core of iCloud, for example, but all most of us see are elegant interface elements in Settings.app that, when tapped, all but transparently backup and restore our iPhones or iPads.

If indeed Apple is planning on using ZFS to make iCloud backups and restores better, it will probably be invisible to end users. One day, iCloud will simply work better, faster, and even more reliably.

More: Wikipedia

Every week a few of us from team iMore will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

The White House — @andrewwray

Looking for a great way to keep tabs on the Obama administration? The White House for iPhone is your best pick, giving you access to news, photos and video of what’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Not only will you have direct access to their blog, which is more of a news source than anything else, but you’ll also be able to browse through archived photos, video and more. I was able to watch the State of the Union address in its entirety earlier this week without strapping myself down to a desk or television. Instead, I just whipped out my iPhone and within a few minutes I was watching the livestream — no questions asked.

Next to the plethora of content, media and information about The White House at your fingertips, you can also setup push notifications to be notified of any major news stories going on in the political realm. Overall, it’s a great resource and the livestream feature is a lifesaver.

• Free — App Store Link

Zite Personalized Magazine – @sethclifford

Flipboard is the app that everyone likes talking about, but there’s actually a few new apps that are doing stylish news aggregation pretty well. One that I’ve really been enjoying lately is Zite, which takes a similar approach to Flipboard, but allows you to customize your reading experience over time by voting stories up or down and then learning what it is you prefer to read and giving you more tailored content.

The setup for the app is pretty simple, and I really like the clean UI. There’s really not much to get in the way and the content really takes center stage. I feel like it’s easier to browse than Flipboard, and while the Flipboard UI conventions are cool, don’t get me wrong – after a while, I feel like I’m really working to see new content, and I don’t feel like I can scan as quickly on my phone (which is a prime criteria for consuming news on the go). Zite feels like it allows me to do that more easily.

The customization aspects are cool too – you basically give stories a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and Zite will remember what it is you liked and in the future return more content like it. There’s a lot of detail here as to how this is all accomplished, and since I’ve only been using it a short time, I can’t speak to its accuracy yet. Also, the type of feeds I’m looking at (tech stuff) usually have a bit of overlap, so it’s hard for me to tell right now. I’m less concerned with teaching the app though, and more concerned with the quickness of information and scanning, and it definitely succeeds there. But the app’s main draw is the personalization of content, so don’t let my particular use-case dissuade you from trying it out. It’s free and a really nice way to get your news.

Zite Personalized Magazine – Free – iTunes link

Messages+ – @iMuggle

I can not explain how happy I am to have a jailbreak on my iPhone 4S. Along with a new jailbreak comes tons of updated utilities and applications for iOS 5. I’ve been using IntelliscreenX and with it comes Messages+. I’ve been a long time fan of BiteSMS but I’m really loving the tight integration Messages+ has with iOS. There’s no separate application or icon, it just works. There’s really nothing to configure. Just set up a quick reply action via Activator and you’re good to go.

You can view images and files right from the quick reply window and then dismiss them. The UI blends perfectly with the default UI of iOS so it looks like something Apple themselves would have made. If you’re jailbroken and haven’t checked out Messages+ yet, I’d give it a try! If you already have IntelliscreenX, you already have a license for it and it comes built-in. If you don’t, you can buy Messages+ separately.

$7.99 – Cydia Search Link

Going back to a #TeamPure iPhone – @chrisoldroyd

This week I decided to give the new Absinthe Jailbreak a go on my iPhone 4S. I have always tinkered around with jailbroken devovces and do love apps like BiteSMS and SBSettings. This time the experience has been awful for me.

Installing the jailbreak was simple enough, I had to wait a bit longer as I am a Windows user. Anyway, to cut a long story short, my phone is all jailbroken in minutes and I installed BiteSMS and SBSettings and nothing more. A few days later and I try and listen to my music in the car and things start to go terribly wrong. Album artwork shows the wrong song playing and most songs start to play then stop or don’t play at all.

I turned iTunes Match on and off, and even synced again with iTunes, transferring all my music back on manually, still the same issue. Only option I had was to go back to a stock install and lose my jailbreak. That is where I am at now and guess what? Yep my music is now perfect again!

Squrl – @Bla1ze

I don’t watch a lot of TV and the shows I do want to watch are usually found on iTunes or Netflix but there isn’t a lot of good stuff out there these days any how in my opinion. For filling that void, I often scour the web looking for good online content to watch when I have some spare time but keeping track of that stuff has proven to be a difficult task over time. For Christmas I got an AppleTV and found Squrl. Squrl basically aggregates a lot of popular online video sites and various other content providers and provides a beautiful UI that allows for tracking videos, saving them for later viewing. Couple that with an AppleTV and you can amass plenty of content to watch in place of television shows. Social network integration as well as netflix, it has become a key resource of entertainment for me and it’s available for free in the iTunes App Store.

• Free – App Store link

Rdio – @jdipane

Music is a huge part of my life, and the ability to have almost any song at my fingertips without eating up all the space on my iPhone is a huge plus for me. Rdio is a subscription based service similar to Spotify, but I find that more songs that I enjoy to listen to are available through Rdio. Whether I want to select a certain song, album or just listen to a particular artists stations I can do so with a few simple clicks from within the application. I have various playlist’s set up, one for work out, one to relax, and I can add and remove songs with ease. Rdio also ties in with my home Sonos system which is great as I can listen to the music through my headphones, the speaker of the device or through the Sonos to keep me motivated. The application is free, but the service is paid, hit the link below to start your free 7 day trial!

• Free – App Store link

Puzzle Juice – @JorjLim

Tetris? Boggle? If you can’t decide which game to play, then Puzzle Juice is a sure winner.

The game starts as a standard game of Tetris; coloured blocks fall from the top of the screen, and you have to form a line at the bottom to score points.

However, unlike traditional Tetris, once you’ve completed a line, it won’t disappear. Instead, every block will turn into a letter and you’ll have to form words to score even more points. Here’s the fun part; while you’re looking for words, the next Tetris block has started falling. If you need more letters to form a word, tap on 3 same-colour blocks that are adjacent to one another to reveal more letters. There is also an optional Zen Mode, which challenges you to score as many points as you can in 90 seconds.

The game itself is well designed and even the menu screens have a pinch of character. You won’t see a “Ok”, or “Start” button throughout the game, instead you’ll see phrases like “Sounds Peachy” and “Totally Got It”, just to add that extra flare to the game.

The game is a mind-game, a fun-game and a challenging game all wrapped into one neat parcel, and will keep you busy for hours!

• $0.99 – App Store link

Doodlecast Pro

My day job is teaching two Intermediate Algebra courses at my local community college and this semester I’m experimenting with making videos for my students on new or difficult topics. Doodlecast Pro for iPad has turned out to be the best app to help me accomplish this. It records both my voice and handwriting and allows me to export and upload my videos directly to YouTube. If I made some mistakes along the way that I want to edit out, I can export to my Camera Roll instead and edit in another application like Avid Studio or iMovie. My only complaint is that the handwriting strokes are not really that great. I would love to see Doodlecast match the quality of handwriting to apps like Penultimate and Noteshelf.

• $3.99 – App Store link

LabTimer – Joe (Reader’s Choice winner – Comment #22)

My favorite right now is Lab Timer. It’s a free universal app that gives you 16 timers. They’ll count up or down and will sound an alarm. It’s handy for work so I can have a break timer, a lunch timer and can time how long a process is taking all from the same app. It’s especially handy for the iPad since there is no built-in clock app.

• Free – App Store link

Tell us your pick, enter to win a $10 iTunes gift certificate!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it’s your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. We’ll pick one of you and send you a shiny $10 iTunes gift certificate so you can start stocking up for future picks! Contest starts now and ends next Friday, January 13 at 12pm PT.

So what are you waiting for? Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Apple and Avid have been battling it out on the big screen for years, but now they’ve brought the video editing battle to the iPad — and the winner may not be who you think.

Avid Studio for iPad launched this week in the App Store, instantly becoming the first real competitor to Apple’s iMovie video editing app. What makes this so interesting is that Avid was king of digital video editing in Hollywood for a long time, and then Apple came out with the far more affordable Final Cut Pro/ Final Cut Studio, and enticed a few big name directors to give their new software a try.

So is Avid getting a little payback here by bringing the video editing battle back to Apple’s home turf? Most definitely, and as good as iMovie is — some of the best mobile software we’ve seen to date — Avid may be even better.

Similarities

Insert photos, movie clips, titles, and music with iMovie.

Both iMove and Avid Studio can do the basics that you would expect from any video editor. You can insert videos, photos, and music, trim clips, add titles, and export to YouTube. Unfortunately for iMovie, this is where the similarities end.

Audio management

Layer up to 3 audio clips at a time with Avid Studio

In iMovie, the only thing you can do with music is insert it as the background of your movie – your entire movie. It’s impossible to take just a clip of the music to place where you wish – you’re stuck with playing the whole song. In Avid Studio, you can trim your music clips and insert them anywhere in your movie. You can also layer up to 3 audio clips at a time.

Inserting photos and videos as picture-in-picture

Insert picture-in-picture image over movie clips with Avid Studio

One of the cool features Avid Studio provides is the ability to insert photos or video over the main movie in the timeline. Meaning, if you want to have a photo or video play in the middle of a movie clip, you can do so while still having the audio and elapsed time from the main movie playing in the background. This is one the features I most like about Avid Studio. The only thing you can do in iMovie is split up the clip and put a photo or movie clip in the middle. Avid’s way — which Apple does support on the desktop version of iMovie — is more useful.

Video management

Access movies that were synced onto iPad from iTunes with Avid Studio

I was surprised when I learned that iMovie did not allow me to access videos that I imported onto my iPad with iTunes. The only videos accessible with iMovie are the ones in your camera roll or albums. What a huge disappointment. Avid provides just such access.

Titles and montages

Avid Studio come preinstalled with 15 montages

Both iMovie and Avid Studio allow you to insert titles for you movie, but iMovie requires that you do it with one of their themes. There is not an option to insert a black slide with text like Avid Studio. This means that all text inserted in iMovie must be overlaid with part of your movie.

Avid Studio also comes preinstalled with fun montages to add to your videos. These are made up of anywhere between 1 and 4 photos and may be static images or mini video clips.

Conclusion

Avid Studio is the clear winner!

Avid Studio may be iMovie’s newest competitor for video editing on the iPad, but it’s not a fair competition. Avid Studio is the clear winner. iMovie doesn’t offer any significant features that Avid does not, but Avid can do much more than iMovie. Since they both cost $4.99, it’s almost a no-brainer. Right now, the only thing iMovie has going for it over Avid Studio is that iMovie is a universal app and also works on the iPhone.

With iPad 3 on the horizon, I hope Apple has a more feature-rich iMovie 2.0 up its sleeves to help show it off. Either way, I can’t wait to try video editing on a 9.7-inch Retina display.

• Avid Studio – $4.99 – App Store link
• iMovie – $4.99 – App Store link