Pen-Olson reported that there is a New Years Day shopping tradition in Japan that offers up a mystery bag of items usually at a discounted price. This year the bag cost 33000 yen (about $430), and most customers are hoping that there will be a big ticket item inside like an iPad 2 or a Macbook Air. In the picture above the lucky bag included an iPad 2, Smart Cover, Camera Connection Kit, headphones, and more. » Lucky Bags: Popular Apple Store Discount Tradition In Japan

There were many people enjoying iOS devices on Christmas Day. There were 21 times more iPods compared to 14 times more iPhones and there were 12.5 times more iOS devices that were activated over Christmas than past weekends. Check out after the break for Graphics and stats about Apple & Android Sales. » Record Sales For Apple This Holiday Season With 12 Times The Amount Of Activations On Christmas Day

The Recording Academy announced today the recipients of its 2012 Special Merit Awards. Steve Jobs was honored with this years Trustees Award for “outstanding contributions to the industry in a nonperforming capacity.” “The ceremony will be held on Feb. 11 during Grammy Week, and the recipients will be acknowledged at this years “54th Annual Grammy Awards” telecast on Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.” » Steve Jobs Honored With 2012 Grammy

Last month Apple started a replacement program for for the first-generation iPod nano due to continuing issues with overheating related to defective batteries from one of Apples suppliers. Now Macrumors reported that some of their readers did receive their replacement but it turns out to be a 6G iPod Nano instead of a 1G iPod Nano. It looks like Apple may have run out of refurbished first-generation iPod nano units and and may now be shipping out current-generation units as replacements. » Apple Replacing First-Gen iPod Nanos with Current-Gen Models

The New York Times reported that Over the last year, Apple and Google have secretly begun working on projects that will become wearable computers. Their main goal: to sell more smartphones. (In Googles case, more smartphones sold means more advertising viewed.) » Apple Prototyping Wearable Devices

On April Foolsday in 1976 Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne signed the founding contract for Apple Computer. The original contract has been sold at Sothebys books and manuscripts auction Tuesday afternoon to a phone bidder for $1.6 million. The tech fortune posted a video of the last minute of the Tuesday bidding for the documents, which started at $70,000 and ended 9 minutes later at $1.35 million. You can see the video after the break. » Original Apple Founding Contract Sells For $1.6 Million At Sothebys Auction

The Apple Grand Central Terminal store in New York City opened up today and a massive crowd came to check it out. In the picture above you can see hundreds of fans stretching all the way down one track and part-way back. Another part of the reason it was so crowded is that Apple will treat avid fans to cool perks, such as 4,000 black shirts with “Apple Store, Grand Central” spelled out in lettering, resembling a train arrival board. Check out after the break for videos and pictures of the crowd and inside of the new Apple Store you can also find the opening hours schedule after the break. » Grand Central Terminal NYC Apple Store Opening Attracts Big Crowds