Share this story. As St. Patrick's Day draws near, Apple fans are counting themselves among the lucky.

1. Apple Filemaker

Apple Filemaker

After all, Steam is finally coming to the Mac, the iPad finally has a ship date, and the iPad developer program now has a much lower barrier to entry. Read on for the top Apple news from the last week:: Apple supposedly contacted executives at 'tier-1' handset makers in January saying it was ready to go to the mat over its iPhone-related IP. Those warnings, coupled with Apple's complaints against HTC, may have a chilling effect on smartphone makers for the indefinite future.: Valve is bringing its online service to the Mac in April and plans to make its Source engine cross-platform. Along with the new cross-platform strategy, Portal 2 will be the first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows.: Apple has revamped its Mac developer program, modeling it on the company's successful iPhone developer program. Apple has also slashed the cost from a minimum of $500 to just $99 per year.: FileMaker has released an upgrade to its stable of professional, cross-platform database products, intended to make setting up and using databases even easier for the average office worker. The improvements also include spreadsheet-like table views and charting features.: At GDC we played Street Fighter IV for the iPhone, and in terms of fighting games on that particular portable gaming device, this is probably as good as it's going to get.

Sadly, it's not good enough.: Apple has finally announced the ship date of the WiFi iPad and has already begun taking preorders. Are you planning to get one? Our reader poll shows that most readers who plan to buy an iPad are getting a WiFi model, though there's still time to vote if you want to make your voice known.: Apple has applied for a patent to turn the iPhone into a universal combination lock for your house, your car, or anything else that needs locking. Though there's no guarantee it will make its way into our hands anytime soon, the method is a fun one to think about.: reMail may still be gone for good from the App Store, but Google has released the iPhone app's code into the wild under the Apache 2 license.

This is good news for others looking to create third party mail apps for the iPhone.: If you have ever had the urge to make a custom iPod remote, it just became a whole lot easier. One enterprising hacker has put together a code repository for communicating with Apple's portable audio players.: WiFi-only iPad models can still get in on mobile broadband using a mobile hotspot, and Verizon is hoping to cash in on the 'opportunity' by selling MiFis and 3G data plans. There are other options available as well, but don't expect to save money going that route. Have a great weekend everyone!