Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He's the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like "ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation." He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
Grant Paul's Zephry (left), Infinifolders (middle), and Gridlock (right) have all been updated.
As jailbreakers wait with eager expectation for an untethered jailbreak that works on iOS 6 and the iPhone 5, Cydia developers are still hard at work. One of the community’s most popular hackers, Grant “chpwn” Paul, has updated many of his popular tweaks. His most famous tweaks, Infinidock, Infiniboard, and Infinifolders, have all been completely rebuilt and made compatible with iOS 6. Collectively they now form Infiniapps 2.0.
Some of Paul’s other iOS tweaks have also received minor updates, like VoiceActivator and Zephyr.
NBC Rock Center just aired its exclusive interview with Brian Williams and Apple CEO Tim Cook. In his first real TV interview, Cook was candid about his CEO role at Apple, the failure of iOS 6’s Maps, the future of the Apple TV, and more.
Here’s the full transcript of tonight’s Rock Center segment with Tim Cook:
Last night The Iconfactory released Twitterrific 5, a completely new iOS version of the grandaddy of Twitter apps. I reviewed the new app in detail when it came out, and the releases seems to have been met with a lot of positive feedback.
One of the developers behind Twitterrific, Craig Hockenberry, has lifted the curtain to give a behind the scenes look at the making of Twitterrific 5. A lot of work goes into making a great app.
Earlier today T-Mobile announced that it will finally start selling Apple products in 2013. As the last major U.S. carrier to not offer Apple’s beloved iPhone, it’s about time T-Mobile joined the cool kids’ table.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has promised that buying the iPhone on his network will be “dramatically different” due to the carrier’s decision to abandon subsidized wireless contracts altogether. This is a huge move that could either make or break T-Mobile, and it will hopefully make buying smartphones like the iPhone a better experience for U.S. customers.
NBC has sent us a teaser clip from the show’s upcoming interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook. The exclusive segment with Brian Williams and Cook will air tonight at 10 P.M. Eastern/ 9 P.M Central on Rock Center.
In the one minute clip, Cook praises the iOS virtual keyboard and admits that he has “ditched physical keyboards” in favor of his iPhone and iPad.
Today Apple issued a significant update to Final Cut Pro that squashes a number of bugs. The 10.0.7 update addresses “overall stability, performance and compatibility” according to Apple, and it’s a free download for existing users in the Mac App Store.
The last Final Cut Pro update was released back in October, and it brought several key new features, including multichannel audio and RED camera support.
Many don’t know that Twitter didn’t actually invent the word “tweet.” It was a small group of developers at The Iconfactory who thought up the clever moniker when they made Twitterrific, the first real Twitter client. Twitterrific started way back in 2007 as the first Twitter app on the Mac, and the first iPhone version went live when Apple launched the App Store in 2008. Since then, the app has continued to evolve on both iOS and OS X. Twitterrific was the first app to use a bird icon, show a character counter as you tweet, and show replies and conversation threads in-app.
Twitterrific was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the likes of Tweetie and Tweetbot, and the The Iconfactory’s work is a shining example of how third-party devs can enhance a service like Twitter and make the experience better for the user. Without Twitterrific, the Twitter app landscape would probably look very different.
Last week, The Iconfactory announced the upcoming release of Twitterrific 5, a totally new redesign on the iPhone and iPad. I’ve been playing with the new app for the past week, and it has now gone live for everyone in the App Store. After taking it for a test run and speaking with The Iconfactory, I can easily call Twitterrific 5 the best version of the first Twitter app.
Philips has joined the likes of JBL by selling Lightning-compatible speaker docks for Apple’s latest iOS devices. Today Philips announced not one, but four new speaker docks with Lightning connectors. Each speaker set serves a different purpose, ranging from a nightstand dock with alarm to a portable speaker.
These speakers should start hitting retail channels this month, but Philips hasn’t given any pricing info yet.
One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.
This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.
What’s hiding behind the door for Day 5? It’s a handy service called Pocket, formerly known as Read It Later.
Apple's golden boy just had himself quite the pay day.
Following Apple veteran Bob Mansfield cashing in $20 million worth of AAPL, Eddy Cue has decided to let go of roughly $8.8 million in stock. Cue, who’s official title at Apple is “Senior Vice President Internet Software and Services,” recently sold 15,000 shares valued at about $583 per share.
Cue only owns 285 accessible shares in Apple now, but he has a treasure trove waiting for him should he choose to stay with the company for the foreseeable future.
LaCie, the fantastic data storage company that was recently acquired by Seagate, has updated its d2 external hard drive with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. It comes in a sleek, minimal, fan-free, aluminum shell that looks great next to any Mac.
With speeds of up to 180MB/s, the only real downside to this drive is that it’s not solid state. LaCie is selling both 3TB and 4TB models.
The official iOS YouTube app just got a monumental update in the App Store. Today’s update finally brings support for the iPhone 5’s taller display, AirPlay integration, and a completely new iPad version. Boo-ya!
There are all kinds of services out there that will paint your iPhone into a crazy colored mess, most notably Colorware. But what about taking it to the next level? When each iPhone is made and assembled in a factory, Apple uses a process called anodization to color the device. A new startup called Anostyle will anodize your iOS devices into another color of your choosing, thereby making you infinitely cooler than all your boring black-and-white-iPhone-using friends.
Although using a company like Colorware works fine, it’s often way too expensive and the paint finish is susceptible to cracking and chipping. Not so with Anostyle. The dye is literally charged and fused into your iPhone for all of eternity.
Apple has issued some small updates to its iWork suite in the Mac and iOS App Stores. Pages, Keynote and Numbers have been updated to version 9.3 on the Mac, and a 1.7 update is rolling out to the iOS versions.
The only thing Apple has said about the minor 9.3 update on the Mac is that it adds support for the 1.7 versions of the iOS apps. All updates are recommended for iWork users on both platforms.
Apple has flipped the switch on the iTunes Store in a grand total of 56 new countries around the world, including key emerging markets like India. Russia, a country where Apple is expected to hold a small celebration event, also now has access to iTunes music and movies.
The iTunes Store is now available in 119 countries in dozens of currencies. Here’s the full press release from Apple:
Android technically sells more smartphones than Apple, but iOS devices continue to dominate mobile web traffic. Chitika Insights has been tracking web traffic on the top mobile platforms, and iOS commands 67% of usage and Android only 33%.
Since May, iOS has seen 2% traffic growth while Android has seen a 2% decrease. Both parties have put out a volley of new devices in recent months, yet the percentages have largely stayed the same for both. More people may be buying Android devices, but iOS device owners appear to be more active online.
Since Apple released iOS 5.1.1 for the Apple TV last week alongside iTunes 11, many users have reported problems updating to the new software over an ethernet connection. This appears to be the result of nasty bug in the latest Apple TV OS. Some Apple TVs even failed to boot back up after the update wouldn’t stick.
If you’ve been having problems updating to 5.1.1 on your Apple TV, then try updating over a Wi-Fi connection or manually restoring in iTunes.
Hunted Cow released its new iOS game, Battle Dungeon, in the App Store less than a week ago, and the title has already been pulled. Why? Rampant piracy. The number of illegitimate users put such a strain on the game’s servers that Hunted Cow was forced to shut it down.
The RPG-like strategy game allowed users to play with each other and compete in leader boards, upgrade characters, etc. It’s a sad day for the game’s paying users.
iTunes 11 is a huge upgrade from its predecessor, and it has received lots of positive feedback since it became available for download on Thursday, November 29th.
Apple has baked iCloud into the core of iTunes, and the app’s interface has been decluttered and enhanced with new features like the MiniPlayer. We’ve been combing through the innards of iTunes 11 to find all of the little changes and additions. Here’s our updating list of iTunes 11 tips and tricks:
The new iMac went on sale in the Apple Store yesterday morning, and initial demand has already caused shipping estimates to slip from 1-3 to 7-10 business days. The base 21.5-inch model is now shipping in 7-10 days, while the faster model still ships in 1-3 days. The 27-inch iMac won’t be delivered for 3-4 weeks, meaning many orders probably won’t arrive in time for Christmas.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has noted that new iMac supplies will be constrained for awhile due to the complicated manufacturing process overseas.
Apple’s new iMac went on sale yesterday, and like clockwork, the folks at iFixit have performed a thorough teardown. Given Apple’s track record, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the 2012 iMac is incredibly difficult to repair. The razor-thin LCD is glued and fused onto the frame, and accessing the RAM and hard drive is like cracking open a vault.
The new iMac scores pretty low on iFixit’s repairability scale, but the machine’s innards are still quite an impressive feat of modern engineering.
Today is December 1st, which means that it is World AIDS Day, “an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died.” Apple has been a longtime partner with the Global Fund and (RED), and today Apple Stores around the world are honoring World AIDS Day by literally going red. Many Apple retail store logos have been colored red to raise awareness.
Apple has also added a banner on its heavily trafficked homepage that encourages customers to donate towards AIDS research.
Griffin is officially the first legit accessory maker to sell third-party Lightning-to-USB cables. Several Lightning-compatible accessories have already come out, but no alternative sync cables. Griffin will start selling Apple-authorized Lightning cables during the first week of December in four different lengths.
Lightning isn’t cheap, so you’ll be paying a minimum of $17 for the shortest cable Griffin offers.
The 4 measurements: 2 feet for $17, 3 feet for $19, 4 feet for $25, and a healthy 3 meters for $30. All come in black and the 2 footer is coiled. For comparison, Apple sells its 3.5-foot Lightning-to-USB cable for $20 and in white only.
These cables should be available on Griffin’s website towards the beginning of next week.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has given his first major TV interview to NBC Rock Center’s Brian Williams, and the exclusive segment will be aired Thursday, December 6th.
Today Facebook launched its new Photo Sync feature for all users of its mobile applications. So if you have the official Facebook app on your iPhone, you now have Photo Sync. It’s been added to the app without an accompanying update in the App Store.
Photo Sync automatically uploads the pictures you take on your device and stores them in a private Facebook photo album. You can then choose to share, file away, or delete the photos within the Facebook app.
