Hasta La Gadget!

Hugh Hefner wasn’t lying to his loyal Twitter followers earlier today when he stated, “Big news! Playboy–both old & new–will be available on iPad beginning in March.” But the facts aren’t quite what many had suspected (or, perhaps, hoped).

Apple hasn’t dropped its staunch anti-adult content policy in the wake of Steve Jobs’s absence. Nope, Hefner and co. will be circumventing the company’s strict App Store policing the way so many adult content providers have before–via the Internet.

Playboy is teaming up with Web designer Bondi to create an iPad-friendly content site. As a Playboy rep said in an interview, “We are releasing a web-based subscription service with Bondi Digital Publishing that will give users access to every issue of Playboy both past and present. The service will be iPad-compatible and will utilize iPad functions.”

The publisher will also be offering an iPad app in the coming months, but this one will feature a lot less nakedness, for those who are actually, you know, in it for the articles.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak responded to Steve Jobs’s sudden leave from Apple this week in an e-mail, stating, “The news actually frightened me because I did not expect it.”

Jobs over the long weekend issued a release stating that he would be going on leave for an unspecified medical reason, fueling speculation in the media that his pancreatic cancer had returned. The day-to-day running of the company has fallen on Apple COO Tim Cook, who has filled in for Jobs during past medical leaves–and is largely expected to become the company’s next CEO.

Woz said that he had yet to actually reach out to his Apple co-founder, but added that he supports Jobs’s decision. “If Steve is tired and wants a bit more normal life,” Woz said, “more power to him.”

Wozniak and Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Ronald Wayne in 1976. Wozniak exited the company in 1987, but is still an Apple shareholder–and proud user of Apple products.

Apple today posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2011, and the company has plenty to celebrate, pulling in $26.74 billion dollars–that’s up from $15.68 billion the same time last year.

Apple moved 7.33 million iPads, 16.24 million iPhones (up 86 percent over last year), and 4.13 million Macs (up 23 percent over last year). iPod sales decreased, meanwhile, with 19.45 million (down seven percent), continuing no doubt to be cannibalized by iPhone sales.

The company’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, was, not surprisingly, optimistic about the whole thing,

We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter. Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.90.

A release issued by the company also contained a quote from CEO Steve Jobs,

We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.

Admit it, you were getting a bit sick of those little slingshotting fowl. Well, a new champion has arisen, taking the much-coveted top spot on the iTunes free apps list. The game Bubble Ball follows a pretty simple premise–the user place a series of simple machines in strategic spots on the screen, in order to roll a ball to the finish line.

But where many of the titles that have snagged the top spot have been the work of a team of experienced programmers and game designers (like, say, Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds), Bubble Ball is largely the product of a single designer–Robert Nay, a 14-year-old eighth grader from Utah.

Nay did most of the game development using a few tools like Corona DSK, a $349 program that lets the user create a game and publish it to the App Store. Nay also got a little design help from his mom.

The 14-year-old started work on Bubble Ball back in November, launching it on December 29th. Since then, the app has been downloaded 1.5 million times. Over the weekend, it beat out the free version of the incredibly popular Angry Birds.