The iPhone 6 Plus was a game changer for Apple back in 2014. But it’s riding off into the sunset now that it’s been added to Apple’s list of vintage products, limiting its repair options.
And the iPad 4 from 2012 is now officially obsolete.
Apple fans are some of the most dedicated in all of tech (some might even call them a cult), but a few enterprising and/or desperate people really outdid themselves this year.
Not that we can really blame them. Cupertino brought the heat this year with the Apple Watch, a cool new Apple TV, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and the massive iPad Pro. We can forgive the superfans for really going all out to get their hands on the latest iGear. But some of their efforts might have been a bit too enthusiastic.
Here are some times when people’s love of Apple outweighed logic this year.
Secret sauce—it’s the reason Apple keeps winning where others fail, and on our newest CultCast, we discuss the recipe that keeps Apple ahead of the pack. Plus, iOS 8 rumors detail some powerful new features; whispers of an impossibly thin iPhone 6; A-list musicians praise Pono as the digital music player for audiophiles; iPad 4 makes a comeback; and we reveal our favorite Cult movies on a all-new Get To Know Your Cultist!
Guffaw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the uproarious good time commence.
And thanks to FreshBooks for sponsoring this episode! That’s right, Fresbooks the simple online accounting solution built for small business owners – just like you – who want to skip the headache of tax time. For a limited time, try FreshBooks free 60 days, and enter “CultCast” in the “How Did You Hear About Us” section.
Show notes up next!
Leave your comments, topics, or suggestions on our new Facebook page! We always try to include them in the show. Facebook.com/TheCultCast.
CultCast #118 – The Secret Sauce
Leander Kahney – Cult of Mac Editor-in-Chief, loyal subject of the Queen.
Erfon Elijah – Cult of Mac writer and host of The CultCast.
Buster Heine – Cult of Mac writer and community manager.
iOS 8 Apple considers Notification Center Messages tweaks removing Game Center app (Discussion)
Pegatron And Foxconn Gearing Up For iPhone 6 Production [Rumor]
Apple Retires iPad 2, Replaces It With Retina Display Model
Apple Confirms The 8GB iPhone 5c Will Not Be Sold In The U.S.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would argue that Apple’s Lightning connector isn’t superior to the old 30-pin connector in every way. That’s why it’s surprising that it has taken Apple so long to phase 30-pin out of its product lineup.
Today Apple brought back the fourth-gen iPad to replace the non-Retina iPad 2. While the press release focuses on the obvious display upgrade, discontinuing the iPad 2 means something else that’s important: another nail in the coffin for 30-pin.
Apple has re-introduced its fourth-generation iPad, this time with only a 16GB capacity.
The revived model replaces the aging iPad 2 — originally released in early 2011 — in Apple’s lineup. Like the iPad mini with Retina Display, it is priced at $399, making it $100 than the iPad Air. A cellular model is also available for $529.
The iPad Air is the first 9.7-inch Retina iPad to ship without an A-X series chip. Put more simply, it’s the first such iPad to forego bolting more graphic cores onto the core chip to drive the massive 2048 x 1536 display.
But if you think that means the iPad Air will have weaker graphic performance than the fourth-gen iPad, you don’t know Apple very well. In fact, graphic performance is as much as 70% better than the last 9.7-inch iPad.
As we predicted, iOS 7 Beta 2 dropped for developers today, but substantially, it’s the first iOS 7 beta to support the iPad 2, Retina iPad and iPad mini.
We’ve already seen official shots of what iOS 7 looks like running on the iPad, as well as shots of iOS 7 running on Xcode’s iPad emulator. Now, though, we’ll get to finally see it running on a real device.
Here are the direct download links:
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is one of the most reliable analysts out there when it comes to predicting upcoming Apple products. Whomever his sources are in the Far East, they run deep. So when Kyo says that the iPad 5 will be 15% thinner and 25% lighter than the iPad 4, and it will take significantly less time to charge, that’s a prediction worth taking seriously.
Whenever third-party retailers start selling an Apple device at a discounted price, it’s usually a good indication that the next product iteration is on the near horizon. While this isn’t always the case, it’s a historic trend that points towards something new from Apple.
Based on recent price cuts from big retailers and the rumor mill, it looks like the iPad will be getting a refresh soon.
Apple just sent out a press release confirming that cellular models of the iPad mini and fourth-gen iPad will officially go on sale in China this Friday, January 15th. During a trip to China last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that WiFi + Cellular models of the company’s newest iPads would arrive this month. The WiFi-only versions went on sale December 7th, a little over a month after U.S. sales began.
Geeze, I use an iPad every day and still I’m learning new things to show you in these tips. Today, I found out about Multitasking Gestures–a feature that’s been around since iOS 5, but really hasn’t been well-publicized, in my opinion. Multitasking Gestures allow you to manage your new iPad mini (or other flavor of choice, from the iPad 2 to the iPad 4) without resorting to the Home button to manage multitasking.
Here’s how to enable, and to use, Multitasking Gestures on your iPad.
A lot of discussion is raging around the iPad mini display, with pundits and tech-savvy consumers alike taking to Twitter, Facebook, and gadget review sites to villify the iPad mini display screen.
With a pixel density of *only* 163 pixels per inch, the iPad mini looks to be, on numbers alone, far lower in resolution than, say, an iPad 4. Which is the truth. But how does that stand up under the microscope? And, since tons of folks are saying the iPad mini is a shrunken-down iPad 2, how do the two screens compare when looked at as closely as possible?
The fine researchers at the Repair Labs blog decided to find out, placing all the currently released iPads, from the first generation to the mini, under the scrutiny of a microscope. What they found may surprise you.
iFixit has now performed its customary teardown on Apple’s fourth-generation iPad, and it seems like a lengthy case of déjà vu. While there are some differences between this model and its predecessor, such as the introduction of Apple’s new A6X processor and Lightning connector, it seems the device remains largely the same — inside and out.
The iPad 3 took forever to charge when it first came out, thanks to the gigantic battery that powers the new Retina display. Now that Apple has updated to the iPad 4, they’ve also come out with a new 12W power adapter that gives us the power we need.
After running some tests on the new 12W power adapter next to the old 10W power adapter, Insanely Great Mac found that the new 12W power adapter will charge an iPad 3 or iPad 4 as much as 30-45 minutes faster.
It doesn’t sound like much, but every second counts when you’re slaughtering your foes on Letterpress. You can pick the new adapter up from the Apple Store for 19 bucks.
Source: Insanely Great Mac
The first iPad Mini and iPad 4 new iPad pre-orders are set to arrive in customers’ homes on November 2, but Apple has posted the official firmware for both the iPad Mini and its larger brethren early.
You gotta love Apple (no, seriously, you gotta love Apple to get a job here at Cult of Mac – Leander tests our faith every day during Morning iService) – it might keep quiet and take its time to fix things, but fix them it does. Well, for high-profile problems at least.
Today’s fix is a new iPad charger, a beefed up 12-watt model which should juice the iPads 3 and 4 faster than the old model.
[polldaddy poll=6632040]
Over 45% of iPad owners are a little upset that Apple announced the iPad 4 on Tuesday. Even though the iPad 4 is a small spec bump, the iPad 3 has only been on the market for six months, making some iPad 3 owners feel like they got screwed out of having the latest and greatest iPad.
Toluna QuickSurveys conducted a study involving 2000 iPad owners, and they discovered that 50% of iPad 4 owners are upset about the launch of the iPad 4, followed by 45% of iPad 2 owners and 40% of first-generation iPad owners being upset as well.
The iPad mini is a great looking device and all that, but people seemed to be pretty disappointed in the price point. While other 7-inch tablets usually start out in the $200-$250 price range, the iPad mini costs $329 for the base model.
After the keynote yesterday, journalists were given an opportunity to play with the newly announced Apple products, while Tim Cook and Phil Schiller mingled with the crowd. When asked about the higher-than-expected price tag of the iPad mini, and Schiller’s response was that people will pay more for a high quality product.
Wondering which iPad is right for you: the iPad mini, the iPad 2, or the iPad with Retina Display? Apple now has a dedicated page explaining the difference between the models, for everything from spec to price.
Source: Apple
With the iPhone 5, Apple abandoned the existing aspect ratio of the iPhone (3:2) and embraced a true widescreen aspect display (16:9) instead. Now an analyst is saying that multiple people “close to Apple” have told him the iPad is going widescreen as well.
The iPhone 5 is a cutting-edge device with a lot of impressive new technology, from Apple’s incredibly fast new A6 chip to impressive new in-cell touch display technology and a brand new Lightning dock connector. It’s a certainty that Apple will use some of this technology in the fourth-generation iPad, which is likely due in March of next year. Here’s what the iPhone 5 tells us about what the iPad 4 will be.
Over the course of the last few months, we’ve heard a lot of rumors that Apple intends on releasing an updated version of the third-generation iPad later in this year to improve the device in a number of ways: namely, to fit it with better efficiency Sharp IGZO panels and give it a new, smaller 9-pin Dock Connector.
Now a new report from research firm DisplaySearch claims that a new iPad is indeed scheduled to arrive alongside the iPad mini, which will be lighter and cooler. We’re starting to think this makes sense.
We just heard that Apple plans to announce the next iPhone, iPod lineup, and iPad mini at an event on September 12th, and now more rumors have surfaced regarding Apple’s iPhone and iPad roadmap, including the iPad 4 and some new cases.
While Apple is expected to ship the iPad mini by November, it’s currently unclear if the smaller tablet will ship at the same time as the iPhone 5 or not. The next major version of the current iPad is rumored to be a more of an evolutionary upgrade to the third-gen iPad, and Apple is expected to implement the same smaller dock connector that will be in the new iPhone.
First thing’s first: this report is as sketchy as it comes, and probably has no validity whatsoever. We still think the theory being presented, though, is interesting enough to discuss.With that out of the way, a Chinese newspaper is claiming that Apple will launch a new iPad later this summer, and far from being the seven-incher everyone has been expecting, it will actually be a 10-inch model that will fix everything that was wrong with the new iPad: mainly, the heft and thickness.
Before we read any further into these claims, let me just reveal where they came from: DigiTimes. While the site has published a few accurate reports on upcoming Apple products in the past, most of its rumors are worryingly farfetched.
The latest claims sources in Apple’s supply chain have detailed the Cupertino company’s launch plans for 2012, promising three new iOS devices between now and the end of the year. One of those will, as you’d expect, be the sixth-generation iPhone, but before that, we will see a new, 7-inch iPad.
What’s more, that new iPad you just bought will apparently be replaced by an even newer one during the fourth quarter.
