Cult of Mac: a blog about the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone - and the people who love them

Cult Favorite: FastFinga For iPhone

9:47 am, November 11th, 2009, Giles Turnbull

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Posted by Giles Turnbull in Favorites, News, Reviews, Software, Top stories, iPhone | 2 Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorite: MobileStacks Is the Best Reason To Jailbreak. Period.

2:28 am, November 5th, 2009, Sayam Aggarwal

I really like Stacks on my Mac. Stacks makes it fast and easy to find files, folders and apps right from the Dock. It makes managing a Mac pretty slick with all sorts of little UI tricks. That’s why I recently gave MobileStack a go on my jailbroken iPhone.

I must say that it lives up to the challenge of making an interface that is intuitive and user friendly enough for the small iPhone screen. In fact, it’s definitely the best excuse to jailbreak.

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Posted by Sayam Aggarwal in Favorites, Top stories, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, iPhone Apps, iPod Touch | 1 Comment »

Cult Favorite: TapeDeck

4:50 am, November 4th, 2009, Giles Turnbull

TapeDeck is one of those apps that I don’t use very often; but when I need it, I’m glad it’s there.

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Posted by Giles Turnbull in Favorites, Reviews, Software | 1 Comment »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Orbit, SpringBoard Navigation The ‘Exposé’ Way for Jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch

12:30 pm, October 27th, 2009, Sayam Aggarwal

I recently came across orbit, which is one of the best navigation options available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I have an iPhone that has over 100 applications and it’s definitely a pain to get to the applications on the last page. I can always put the useful applications on the first page but at this point, I have just stopped arranging them. This is when Orbit enters the scene. Instead of swiping across all these pages, it lets me jump to a particular page quickly using simple tile view, saving me a lot of time. That’s the reason it’s one of my favorites.

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Posted by Sayam Aggarwal in Favorites, Reviews, iPhone, iPhone Apps, iPod Touch | No Comments »

Gallery: 20 All-Time Great iTunes Album Covers

2:59 pm, October 13th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar

Over 6 million songs in the iTunes Music Store. God knows how many albums that translates to, but we must be insane to try and pick 20 albums worth considering for their combination of music and artwork, right?

As long as we’ve got that straight on the front-end, then.

Herewith, a collection of 20 albums available on iTunes, loosely organized by release date (in reverse order) and presented with the thought they might make good additions to the much-ballyhooed iTunes LP upgrade hyped at Apple’s It’s Only Rock and Roll event in September.

No doubt readers may quibble with some (perhaps all!) of our selections; no doubt you’ll have suggestions of your own. Do let us know abut it in comments. All album links open in iTunes.

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Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Favorites, Music, iTunes | 19 Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorites: “HiHowAreYou”

1:04 am, September 29th, 2009, Pete Mortensen

What it is: A simple puzzle platformer in which you play Jeremiah the Frog, a cheerful fellow trying to escape Satan’s curse by turning floor squares red and green with his hops — all to the music of brilliant indie rock outsider Daniel Johnston.

Why it’s cool: Didn’t you read the description? Ah, well. The play control is smooth and easy to pick up, the graphics are beautiful and cartoony, and the soundtrack is amazing. I’ve only been playing for five minutes, but I’ve already heard “Some Time Spent in Heaven.” Better still, Jeremiah is based on a mural Johnston painted in Austin, Texas, who cheerfully declares “Hi, How Are You?” to people on the campus of the University of Texas. But it’s a good game whether you know that or not.

Where to get it: On the App Store, of course. Link. It’s only 99 cents for a limited time.

Via FingerGaming

Posted by Pete Mortensen in Favorites, Reviews, iPhone Apps | 3 Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Tab Toolkit, a Swanky Music Tablature App for iPhone

11:59 pm, September 22nd, 2009, Lonnie Lazar

What it is: Tab Toolkit is a sophisticated guitar practice and education app from Agile Partners, makers of the handy Guitar Toolkit app that came out in 2008. Tab Toolkit lets users read and listen to real-time guitar tablature files, scrolling through songs at the correct tempo, showing both traditional and tablature notation and superimposing fingering notation updated in real-time on a virtual fretboard or piano keyboard.

Why it’s cool: Tab Toolkit is an app for serious guitarists willing to invest $10 in something that will make tab charts come alive on the go. That said, the app is cool because it shows the user exactly where to finger guitar parts as a synthesized version of a song is playing in real time through the iPhone or iPod Touch speakers or headphones. Songs can be stopped and started, scrolled forward and back, and the sound output can be muted to allow users to concentrate on their own playing. The fretboard can even be flipped to accommodate left-handed players.

Tab files can be a bit of a rare beast to come by, with the most useful files optimized for Mac being those created and readable by GuitarPro software, which runs $59.

Online libraries such as GPro Tab offer free sharing of user-generated GuitarPro tabs, which can be a great way to get started in the rich world of online instrument practice and education. Tab Toolkit supports text files and PDF files as well, but the genius behind the app is best appreciated with a GuitarPro tab.

The app supports multitrack parts, so users can learn two different guitar parts to a song, for example, or the bass part, the keyboard part, or even the vocal. Tempos can be speeded up or slowed down, and getting tabs from a user’s computer on to the iPhone are a snap over a wireless network connection – from the web onto the phone they are just as easy using the embedded Safari browser.

This reviewer doesn’t have too many $10 apps on his iPhone, but as a musician, I can say without reservation that Agile Partners have created an incredibly useful, well-thought-out app that performs – so far – flawlessly.

Where to get it: Tab Toolkit went live in the iTunes App Store on Tuesday; it sells for $9.99

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Favorites, First impressions, Music, Software, iPhone, iPod Touch | No Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Reevoo’s iPhone Site For On-The-Go Comparison Shopping

10:22 am, September 22nd, 2009, Giles Turnbull

If you haven’t encountered Reevoo before, go and take a poke around it now. It’s a UK-oriented customer reviews site that’s managed to aggregate an impressively large database of real comments from real people about real products.

And the iPhone version of the site is incredibly useful when you’re out at the shops trying to track down the best product at the best price.

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Posted by Giles Turnbull in Favorites, Opinions, Reviews, iPhone | No Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorite: 12 Mail, a Great Video Sharing iPhone App

9:09 am, September 22nd, 2009, Lonnie Lazar

12mail is the first video messenger for the iPhone.

What it is: Developed by the creators of the excellent photo/slideshow sharing app 12 Seconds, which was among the first iPhone apps to support shared audiovisual messaging, 12mail is the first app to fully support streaming video messaging.

Why it’s cool: 12mail features full integration with Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to instantly populate the app with contact information for their friends on the the two most popular social media platforms in use today. The app breaks contacts into Everyone and Favorites groups, making it easy to find those in heaviest rotation, and has an option allowing public posts to a user’s Twitter page or Facebook wall.

Compiling videos stored on a user’s phone or recording new video is dead easy, and most brilliant of all, the app only uses the first 12 seconds of any video users choose, keeping messages small enough to send and receive painlessly even over a slow Edge connection. The app uses push notification and features the ability to annotate with text titles and geotags.

All video streams from servers at 12seconds.tv, which avoids use of limited storage on a user’s device and allows people without the app to receive and even initiate 12mail video messages of their own.

Where to get it: 12mail is free and went live in the iTunes App Store today.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Cult of Mac, Favorites, Software, iPhone | 1 Comment »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Notational Velocity – Now Snow Leopard Compatible

4:06 am, September 14th, 2009, Giles Turnbull

What is it? It’s Notational Velocity, one of the best and yet most overlooked note apps for OS X. You should download it immediately.

Why it’s cool Because if you want to store text notes, many hundreds or thousands of them, and then be able to search through them at lighting speed, there is no faster or simpler way of doing it.

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Posted by Giles Turnbull in Favorites, News, Reviews, Software | 1 Comment »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Snow Leopard’s New Services

6:43 am, September 4th, 2009, Giles Turnbull

Snow Leopard’s revitalised Services menu is probably my favorite improvement among the many included in the upgrade.

At long last, the user has been given total control over Services. We can choose whether or not they are used, we can assign keyboard shortcuts that suit us, and we can create entirely new Services using Automator.

The crucial difference between Services in Leopard and Services in Snow Leopard is context.

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Posted by Giles Turnbull in Favorites, Opinions, Software, Top stories | 13 Comments »

How-To: Upgrade To Snow Leopard — The Right Way

8:24 am, August 28th, 2009, Leigh McMullen

A lot of people will be upgrading to Snow Leopard this weekend. There’s the right way to do it, and there’s the wrong way.

Here’s how to do it right.

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Posted by Leigh McMullen in Favorites, How tos, How-To, News, OS X, Top stories | 75 Comments »

Cult of Mac Favorite: Pix Remix Lite – Stellar iPhone Photo App Gets Free Version

8:00 am, August 24th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar

What it is: The developers at Jump Associates – creators of the highly regarded iPhone photo application Pix Remix – have created a free version of the app, called Pix Remix Lite, that blows the doors off of any free photo manipulation software on the App Store.

Why it’s cool: Back in July, we wrote about Pix Remix, the very cool photo transformation application that allows users to easily combine a group of photos with captions into an animated collage or documentary-style narrative show within minutes – and share with friends and family easily via email or posting to Facebook and Twitter.

The free Pix Remix Lite has all the basic features of the highly acclaimed original software, plus some new features that have also been incorporated into an updated version of the 99¢ paid version, making Pix Remix a must-have tool for anyone who likes to share photos from their iPhone.

New features available in both versions let users remix shows others have sent to them, upload photos to a Facebook gallery while posting a show, and embed shows in any blog or webpage.

The paid version of Pix Remix now also lets users save shows locally on their device, export a collage as a high-res JPG (up to 1024×682), and use Copy and Paste to add photos to a show. Users can also save individual photos from a show (one they have created or one they have received) to the iPhone’s Photo Library, allowing for easy syncing with a computer.

Pix Remix Lite limits collages and shows to 5 images, while the paid version supports up to 10 images in a single collage or show.

Check out the YouTube demo here, and go here to see more sample shows like the one above.

Where to get it: Pix Remix and Pix Remix Lite are both available now on the iTunes App Store.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Favorites, Media, News, iPhone | 1 Comment »

Cult of Mac Favorite: iRealBook – iPhone Music App

3:16 am, August 17th, 2009, Lonnie Lazar

What it is: iRealBook is an iPhone and iPod Touch compatible version of the iconic Real Book, a venerable “fake book” that has been the music bible for jazz musicians and vocalists for many years. A repository of chord sheets for some 700+ Jazz standards, Jazz classics, Latin and Brazilian classics and more, the Real Book has long been an indispensable tool for professional Jazz artists and students alike.

Why it’s cool: iRealBook (iTunes link) improves on the paper copy by providing chord charts of every song in the catalogue, each of which can be easily transposed to any key. Where the physical copy of the Real Book provides only sheet music with standard notation in the originally written or recorded key, this iPhone version gives players easy-to-read, chord-based notation that fits on a single screen, in extra large fonts that make the sheets easy to read in both profile and landscape modes. It even offers a “Night View” with white text over a black background that makes charts legible on darkened bandstands. Songs in the catalogue can be browsed by style or composer when a user is stumped for ideas, and the developer, Massimo Biolcati invites requests for additions to the database.

Where to get it: iRealBook is available on the iTunes App Store for $7.99 and is worth every penny for the jazz and standards aficionado who wants to have the critical oeuvre at hand on the go.

Hit the jump for screenshots.

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Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Favorites, Software, iPhone, iPod Touch | 3 Comments »

Cult of Mac favorite: Drop7 (insanely addictive iPhone game)

10:19 am, July 20th, 2009, Craig Grannell

Drop7: a bit like drugs, only more addictive.

What it is: Yet another puzzle game. This time, you drop numbered discs into a grid. If the number matches the amount of discs in its row or column, the disc vanishes. If it’s next to gray blocks, it smashes them. Clear chains for bonuses.

Why it’s good: The evil people behind Drop7 describe it as “Tetris meets Sudoku”, which is kind of right. However, we’d prefer to describe it as “hardcore drugs meets videogaming”, since Drop7 just won’t let go. We find ourselves sneaking quick goes on ‘hardcore’ mode, because they only take a few minutes each, but then an hour flies by and deadlines are standing in front of us, with a concerned, slightly angry expression.

We fully believe that Area/Code actually plans to get everyone hooked on Drop7, shortly before taking over the world and going “mwahahahahahaha!” a lot. Put it this way: we’re now playing this more than Flight Control.

Where to get it: Drop7’s available via the App Store, and there’s more information at the Drop7 website. At the time of writing, the game cost three bucks. Don’t leave home without it—or you’ll get the shakes.

Posted by Craig Grannell in Favorites, Gaming, Reviews, Top stories | 4 Comments »