Well, the year has certainly settled down into the same old routines that were popular in December of 2009. Whodathunkit? We'd hoped you'd have kept your New Year's resolutions at least a little longer than two lousy weeks, but, then, we're still spending (wasting) just as much time on Lolcats now as last year.

At least we have a little something for you that isn't a waste of your time. That's right, it's our weekly round up of stuff you might have missed while singing along to "The Internet is Made of Cats."

Features:

- 50 Killer Mac Apps For Under $50 - Try to find software out there on the internet to do anything, and you're bombarded with every developer in the world's version of something. Some are free, some are share, and some cost a little bit. But why risk plunking down your hard earned dollars on something you've never even heard of before, something whose quality you can't judge? See, that's why you read Mac|Life. We've got you covered whether your interests are organizing your collections, sharing files, playing different media formats, getting your to-do lists in order, straightening your finances, or jumping into social media.

- 20 Real-World Uses for Google Wave - From the moment it was announced, we signed up for  then pined and ached for our Google Wave invite. Once we got it, though, like a lot of people we weren't quite sure what to do with it. Unless you know a few other people who can tap its digital richness, it's not much fun playing with it by yourself. Pass these little lessons along to your friends and get Waving with the best of 'em.

Reviews:

- Motorola Droid - Let's cut straight to the chase here, never mind games, never mind software. Let's talk the latest smartphone to try a crack at the iPhone's well-deserved crown, the Motorola Droid. This baby's definitely got some potential. For starters, it runs the latest Android right out the gate and comes packed with turn-by-turn GPS sweetness, the ability to run background apps (at a cost in speed and battery life), but it's a hefty handset with a few sticking points. The iPhone's safe for now.

- The Movies Superstar Edition - Imagine The Sims Hollywood and you've got a good idea of what this feature jampacked blockbuster's all about. You're a Hollywood studio in the 1920s and you've got to build your rep, keep your stars happy, watch out for rivals, and make sure you're up to date with the latest trends by decade. There's hours and hours of fun in this one, sometimes maybe a little too much, but overall a very well-planned and presented game that can consume you if you let it.

- OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro "Triple" - Our first laptop had 1 GB of spare space and we thought we were in heaven. One thousand megabytes? Ha, we'd never fill that baby up. Dozen or so years later and we're pushing maximum density on a 300 GB hard drive. OWC comes to the rescue with the Mercury line of external hard drives that exceeded all expectations. They handled all our tasks with speed, without error, and with a stylish design. These puppies blew us away. Now we just need to know what we'll do when we fill up one of these.

- BusyMac BusyCal - This one also made our 50 for under $50 above, but we barely scratched the surface there of what this super-packed Calendar software brings to the table. Imagine iCal on steroids, then imagine that steroidal iCal on a second helping of steroids, and you start to get an idea. BusyMac brings with it so many improvements over the basic calendar, you'll soon wonder why you didn't switch earlier then later wonder what you'd ever done without BusyCal. Sharing on a LAN, private calendars for multiple users, Rich Text editing, floating events in case you didn't finish your to-do, and that's just for starters. It's a bit pricey at $40, but if you're a calendar power user, this will make you a calendar Jedi.


News:

We're on the cusp of tablet nirvana if the last several months worth of rumors were right about anything. But now it seems, there's a few wrinkles to the regular iPhone update that might be of interest. An anonymous but prominent app developer claims that iPhone OS 4.0 is just around the corner; the thinking goes that it'll contain much tablet goodness, which is why we've not seen much in the way of 3.0 updates lately....analysts are also predicting that the iPhone refresh will include a touch sensitive casing similar to the Magic Mouse and that 5 megapixel cameras will be added in the refresh....the Korea Times reports that KT, the iPhone carrier there, claims the new iPhones, not just a new OS, will be out in April; so far they're the only one smoking that particular rumor weed...

In App Store news, MobileMe Gallery hits the App Store and we can only wonder what took so long....certain analysts with dollar signs in their eyes get crazy with some figures suggesting the App Store is losing around $450 million per year...Zinio magazine publisher isn't waiting around for the tablet to put their content up; their reader app hit the stores and has some slick content interfacing...Apple promised faster App Store approvals in 2010 and as far as we can tell looks like they're coming through....Fandango goes paperless ticketing with their app, which will make it that much easier to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. You know you want to.

Apple and Google lately seem to be at each other's throats, but we never expected The Woz to go all Nexus One on us...even despite his traitoriousness, turns out Nexus One's sales were a little, oh, let's just say disappointing...even if, as turns out to be the case, the profit margins for Google are a little higher....while at the same time their related handsets, Motorola's Droid and other Android phones, didn't do so well in the whole touch screen testing... in case you were interested, here's a little article that dishes on what's behind the Google v. Apple Steel Cage Death Match...and in another fight Google's having that we are enjoying, the company and China get a little up in each other's grills.