Music streaming service Rhapsody has finally made itself available on your iPad with a brand new app that promises to deliver “a visually stunning and immersive experience for the music lover!” It brings more than 16 million songs to your tablet, with support for offline playlists, AirPlay, and unlimited downloads. What’s more, it offers a 30-day free trial for those who aren’t already signed up.
There’s a problem I often run into with my mobile devices, and that’s not enough storage space. I insist on purchasing devices with just 16GB of memory, and then I have to find ways to manage that storage the best I can. Some devices will take microSD cards that will allow you to bump their storage as and when you need it, but others — like Apple’s iOS devices — don’t come with that luxury.
Vantec’s new NexStar WiFi hard drive dock lets you bump your smartphone, tablet, and even PC storage over Wi-Fi. You can use it to store your audio and video collections on your home network, then use Vantec’s dedicated apps to access them wirelessly when you need to.
Sonos has updated its iOS app and introduced the ability to wirelessly stream music AirPlay-style to your Sonos speaker directly from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Until now, users have had to have a Mac or PC acting as a middleman, but Sonos latest iOS apps remove that requirement.
The People People Speaker is a clever solution to a persistent, cruel and terrible first-world problem: big, ugly speakers eating up the visual space of your home. The answer isn’t to make the speaker smaller, but to make the speaker less visible.
Thus the almost invisible speaker was born.
AirPlay is one of Apple’s killer features in iOS or the Mac. As long as you have an AirPlay-compatible speaker or, better yet, an Apple TV in range, you can automatically stream video or audio to another device, all without pairing first.
Now according to a new report, Google wants to not only launch its own bonafide AirPlay competitor, but one-up AirPlay by offering true second screen capabilities to customers using Android devices with their Google TVs.
Priced at only $99, the Apple TV is a pretty awesome deal. But if you thinking streaming movies from you Mac to your LED Plasma 3D Ultra High-Definition TV isn’t worth that much, then maybe you just need a cheaper Chinese knockoff solution.
Xiaomi Box looks pretty similar to an Apple TV, it’s cheaper than an Apple TV, it even comes with the ability to use Apple’s AirPlay protocol like an Apple TV, but it only costs $64.
Apple Head of Marketing, Phil Schiller, took the stage today and asked a very important question. “What does the iPad mini do that the iPad doesn’t already do?” he wondered aloud.
His answer was only half as good – “It can fit in one hand.” Here at Cult of Mac, however, we think that’s only part of the story. The fact is that Apple’s newest, smallest, thinnest iPad makes a perfect gaming controller.
The iPhone 5 has been on sale for nearly a month now, but we’re still yet to see any official third-party Lightning accessories. It’s not that accessory makers are slow at producing them, it’s that Apple is yet to finalize its Lightning policies and give manufacturers the go-ahead to use its new connector.
Fortunately, this is expected to happen next month. Apple will hold a conference in Shenzhen, China, between November 7 and November 8 with its Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad (MFI) program partners to finalize its Lightning plans, according to a source “close to Apple’s accessory manufacturing partner.”
I’m one of those people that loves background noise. I like listening to podcasts when I cook; I love a running telly while I’m doing chores; and even when I’m in the shower, I’ve either got Spotify or those podcasts going again.
Previously, this love of shower-time bluegrass meant bringing my iPhone into the bathroom, cranking up the volume on its little speakers, then straining to hear its tinny audio through the whir of water and intense loofahing. But the iShower ($100) Bluetooth speaker fixes this problem simply and wonderfully. It brings your iDevice’s audio anywhere where water would usually kill it, like your bathtub, shower, or sink, and works so well, it’s quickly becoming my favorite new iPhone accessory.
With the 30-pin dock connector on the brink of extinction, you’re probably wandering how you’re going to hook your iOS devices up to your TV without the help of an Apple TV. Your old HDMI and VGA adapters won’t work, and Apple didn’t announce any new ones at its iPhone 5 event. So does that mean AirPlay is the only option?
Thankfully, it does not. Apple has confirmed that Lightning-compatible HDMI and VGA adapters will be arriving for your new iOS devices “in the coming months.”
Read our latest...
Cult of Mac is a daily news site that follows everything Apple. Our goal is to provide timely news, insightful analysis, helpful how-tos and honest reviews. Find out more about Cult of Mac.
Published in sunny San Francisco.
All times are in PDT (GMT-8).
![Apple Expected To Finalize Lightning Guidelines With Accessory Makers On November 7 [Rumor]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-17-at-13.47.00.jpg "Lightning-adapter")
