editorial

Viticci’s Editorial Review Was So Long, He Turned It Into This Awesome iBook

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Remember Federico Viticci’s review of the amazing new iPad “text editor” Editorial? Of course you do – it’s the one you pushed to your read-later service and never read later, because it was just too damn long for a single post on a website. Hell, the thing even had a table of contents. A blog post with a table of contents.

Now, though, you can enjoy Viticci’s opus in a form much better suited to a long text with multiple sections: a book. And being an Apple nerd, Viticci made it into an iBook.

Brett Terpstra’s Awesome SearchLink Ported To Editorial For iPad

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Brett Terpstra’s SearchLink is a System Service for OS X which automatically generates links from your text, without you having to bother to look anything up on Google first. It’s like having an unpaid intern inside your Mac.

And Editorial is that fancy new iPad text editor that incorporates workflows that you can roll yourself.

Now the two have been combined into one amazing iPad ball of goodness.

Editorial For iPad Might Just Be The Best Text Editor On Any Platform

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Editorial might just make you ditch your computer altogether as a writing machine. It’s a new iPad text editor from Ole Zorn, the man behind the incredible Pythonista app (Editorial actually features a built-in Python editor). Editorial could just be used as a really polished, really well-designed text editor, but it also has customizable, Automator-style workflows that let you do pretty much anything with the text you have in the app.

Editorial, Like Pythonista For Text

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Ole Zorn, the super-villain[1] behind the amazing Pythonista for iOS, has just started teasing his newest app – a Markdown text editor for the iPad. Only unlike all the other Markdown editors, this one is looks like it’s as programmable as Pythonista. I’m getting pretty excited.

Why Apple Is Calling It The iPhone 5 [Opinion]

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Apple has sent out a mysterious invite for its media event next Wednesday. Notice the giant
Apple's invite for today's event confirms the next iPhone will be called the iPhone 5.

We thought we’d had it all figured out.

When Apple bucked the trend of numerically naming the iPad by calling the Retina iPad the “new iPad” instead of the iPad 3, we thought it was a sure thing that they’d do the same thing for the next iPhone. The next iPhone, then, would be “the new iPhone” or the “2012 iPhone”, not the iPhone 5.

It made total sense, in a way: Apple doesn’t add a numeral to the end of its other products, like the MacBook Pro or the iPod Classic. They don’t even do it for the iPod touch, which is basically the most current iPod with all the phone guts stripped out. Why continue setting apart the iPhone as a sequel to the handsets that have come before when you can position it, not as an incremental update, but a timeless product in its own right: the Mercedes of smartphones?

That’s the way Apple handles the rest of its products, but with the invitation for today’s, and now Apple accidentally spilling the official name of the next iPhone on their website, it now seems clear that Apple is going to call the sixth-generation iPhone the ‘iPhone 5’ after all. Why would they do that?

Why Apple Launching Its Own Streaming Music Service Makes Sense [Opinion]

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Steve Jobs introduced Genius back in 2008. It could be the brains behind Apple's rumored streaming music service.
Steve Jobs introduced Genius back in 2008. It could be the brains behind Apple's rumored streaming music service.

The big story of yesterday evening was a somewhat cryptic report by The Wall Street Journal that Apple wants to build its own streaming music service, a la Pandora. Once you step back from the “hey, wouldn’t that be cool”-edness of it all, it’s a weird report. But it may not be totally bonkers. In fact, it probably makes a lot of sense.

Why Foursquare Really Killed Creepy Stalking App ‘Girls Around Me’

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Foursquare doesn't ever want you thinking about not doing this, but maybe you should.
Foursquare doesn't ever want you thinking about not doing this. That's why you definitely should.

When we broke the story on Friday about Girls Around Me — an iOS app by Russian-based app developer i-Free that allowed users to stalk women in thee neighborhood without those women’s knowledge, right down to their most personal details — Foursquare was quick to respond within hours, cutting off the API access that the app relied upon to function.

Foursquare’s swift response to the issue effectively killed Girls Around Me, and i-Free quickly yanked the app from the App Store in the aftermath until they could figure out a way to restore service. And for a lot of people, the story ended there. The app’s gone. Why keep talking about it?

That’s exactly the way Foursquare (and Facebook) wants things.

Why Today’s Education Announcements Means The Sub-$299 iPad Is Coming Soon [Opinion]

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Today’s Education Event at the Guggenheim in New York City was by all reports supposed to be “demure,” but that didn’t stop Apple from making a big splash. In fact, today’s event may have marked the most concerted attempt by Apple to revolutionize the classroom since the original Apple IIe.

Among today’s announcements? A new version of iBooks that makes textbooks on an iPad fully interactive, along with free authoring tools so easy-to-use and revolutionary that literally any author can create a beautifully formatted interactive e-book. Coupled with iTunes U — perhaps the most comprehensive classroom learning software ever — and a pledge to keep the price of all textbooks at $14.99, Apple’s goals are clear: they want to get an iPad in the hands of every student in the country.

There’s only one problem, right now: the lack of a budget iPad. It’s a problem Apple can (and should) fix.

Why The iPad 3 Won’t Come With Siri Unless You Pay More For It

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We’re only about two or three months away from the iPad 3 dropping and blowing our socks off. Right now, we can tell you a lot about what the iPad 3 will probably be like. It’ll feature Apple’s new, quad-core A6 CPU. It’ll feature a 2048 x 1536 resolution Retina Display. It may — but probably won’t — be the first iOS device to ship with LTE support.

But what about Siri, Apple’s amazing new voice control technology prominently featured in the iPhone 4S? Surely, that’s a lock for all future Apple devices starting with the iPad 3, right?

Well, hold on. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Let Cooler Heads Prevail: Do You Need AppleCare+? [Opinion]

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A good friend of mine recently bought a new iPhone 4S from her local Apple Store. When presented with her new iPhone, the Apple Store salesperson tried to sell her on AppleCare+. It was a hard sell; in her opinion, the Apple Store salesperson went about it in all of the wrong ways. She’s a savvy consumer, reads Cult of Mac and other tech blogs, and has even read my new book. She did her own research before she bought the iPhone. She understood the differences between AppleCare and AppleCare+. She weighed risks of accidental damage against the price and limitations of AppleCare+, and decided the extra protection wasn’t for her.

She passed on AppleCare+, but believes that she might have been swayed if she hadn’t done her homework. She made a choice and, whether or not it turns out to be the right one, she was the one to make it. But not everyone is going to take the time to evaluate the pros and cons of AppleCare+ and will be confronted with this question at the time of purchase. Might you or someone you know fall victim to a hard sell on AppleCare+?

Should Samsung Buy webOS To Protect Itself From Apple? It Might Make Sense. Here’s Why [Opinion]

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Samsung’s in trouble. The Korean electronics giant is being sued by Apple in just about every market for copying Apple’s iOS, iPhone and iPad designs… and Apple’s winning. Worse, Samsung’s biggest mobile partner, Google, just bought out one of their main smartphone competitors, Motorola, for $12.5 billion. Now that Google has an Android hardware team in-house, how much longer will third-party smartphone makers like Samsung be given equal access to the Android operating system?

It’s a tight spot, and Samsung knows it’s in trouble. Samsung boss Lee Kun-Hee reacted to the news of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobiity by telling top managers on Monday to “boost software prowess, patent pools and talent,” as well as seek out opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. Samsung — probably correctly — thinks this will be a quicker way to boost the prowess of their own in-house mobile OS, Bada.

Well, bada bing, bada boom, because a huge acquisition opportunity may have just presented itself. After a single round, HP just threw in the towel on webOS, a mobile operating system they purchased along with Palm back in 2010 for $1.2 billion.

We’re just spitballing here, but maybe Samsung should buy webOS and the Palm business out from under HP? Here’s why it could be a good move.

Why Google’s Purchase Of Motorola Is A White Flag Of Surrender, And How Apple Won The Future of Tech [Opinion]

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This morning, Google made a bold move and purchased Motorola’s mobile business for $12.5 billion. In doing so, Google brought the hardware design and manufacturing of Android devices in-house, just as Apple has always done with its products, starting with the original Macintosh and continuing all the way to the iPhones and iPads of today.

This is nothing short of a capitulation. By purchasing a smartphone maker, Google has all but admitted that it needs more than just a free operating system and loads of partners to compete with Apple: they need to duplicate Apple’s successes by totally controlling both the hardware and software of their devices.

Which MacBook Air To Buy? Get The 128GB 11-Inch Model With 4GB of RAM. Here’s Why

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Today, Apple released new Sandy Bridge MacBook Airs with Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards and all-around upped specs. Any MacBook Air you get will, in all likelihood, be the best laptop you’ve ever owned, but how do you know which MacBook Air is right for you?

After nine months of using and loving our last-gen MacBook Airs, we know which one we’d recommend to most people: the 128GB 11-inch MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM. Here’s why.