Apple just announced the latest iPhone: the iPhone 4S.

Those who expected a schmancy new iPhone 5 to be released were disappointed. The iPhone 4S has the same form factor as the iPhone 4. With the exception of the Siri voice functionality (see below), all the software enhancements will be bundled into the new iOS 5 operating system and thus will be available on old iPhones too.

Given that, is it worth upgrading to an iPhone 4S? Yes and no . . .

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If there’s one product outside of the computer and portable electronics markets we wish Apple would design, it’s a car.

Spot Cool Stuff is a big fan of nearly everything Apple. Yes, their products aren’t inexpensive. But they are almost universally well designed, well built and user friendly—not to mention cool-looking. If Apple were to bring their prowess an automobile design . . . well, we can only imagine.

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Apple today announced updates to the MacBook Air, the company’s cool-looking, ultraportable netbook. What got less attention is Apple’s co-incidental decision to discontinue the MacBook.

No, no, not the popular and powerful MacBook Pro (one of which is being used to type these very words—see our review on how to best configure a new MacBook Pro for your purposes). The MacBook Pro lives on. But the MacBook—Apple’s plasticy, entry level laptop—does not.

The change means that Apple’s lightest laptop is new also its cheapest. Prices for the new 11″ Apple MacBook Air will start at US$999 retail, a bit less at discounters like Amazon.com and MacMall.

The major updates to the MacBook Air:

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Compared to PC users, those with Macs are more likely to be college educated, live in cities and throw parties. On TV they like watching The Daily Show and Friday Night Lights. PC users, meanwhile, watch The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Smallville. They are better at math than Mac people, and more likely to dress casually.

Those are some of the conclusions of a survey conducted by Hunch.com, a personalized internet search engine. And they are among some of the factoids you’ll find on the infographic we’ve attached below.

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The 2011 updated version of the Apple MacBook Pro is out. The majority of the improvements over the previous MacBook Pro incarnation are performance related. The most significant of those: new quad-core Intel processors that increase speed nearly 100%. There’s also a new graphics processor (three times faster than the old MacBooks), an HD camera for video chats, a somewhat more powerful battery and a “Thunderbolt” port that can connect to HD displays and transfer data at a blazing 10GB per second.

Though every new MacBook Pro has those improvements not every model offers the same configuration. You, the consumer, have choices to make. 4GB of memory or 8GB? An HDD or flash drive? The speed of the Intel i5 processor vs the i7? And so on.

Here’s Spot Cool Stuff’s take on how to most cost-efficiently configure the latest generation Apple MacBook Pro.

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Verizon today announced that the iPhone 4 will be coming to its network in the United States. What’s the difference between the two cellular network’s iPhones? And is it worth making the switch to Verizon if you are currently with AT&T? Spot Cool Stuff investigates:

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