Until Instagram made the jump to Android, the photography social network was an iPhone-only affair. With plenty of web apps and even native apps like Carousel on the Mac, you can also use Instagram from your desktop computer. Thanks to a beautiful app called Instagrille, even Windows users can check their Instagram feed in style.
The free Instagrille program allows you to check your feed, make comments, like photos, see your notifications, and even download photos to your hard drive. Not bad.
Notification Center on the iPad isn’t that great. It functions just like the iPhone, meaning you pull down a window from the status bar to see your notifications. While that interface works nicely on the iPhone, the window isn’t scaled appropriately to the iPad’s larger display.
In OS X Mountain Lion, Notification Center makes more sense on a larger screen. Instead of coming down from the top of your Mac’s display, your notifications are displayed on the side of the screen. Want that type of Notification Center interface on your iPad? A jailbreak tweak called MountainCenter will make it happen.
Last March, Twitter told the developer community to stop making third-party apps and clients that “mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Twitter said, “We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.”
Fast forward more than a year later, and Twitter is slowly moving away from an open platform for developers to build upon. Twitter plans to implement stricter API guidelines for developers, and while there’s no concrete evidence that Twitter will shut down third-party apps altogether, the current landscape of great apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific could look very different in coming months.
The topic of selling access to iOS beta software has come up again as of late, and with Apple’s release of the iOS 6 beta, many eager non-developers are itching to get their hands on the upcoming OS as soon as possible. For some, the desire to try iOS 6 is so great that they will buy access to developer-only software from unofficial websites Apple does not support.
Apple has turned its attention to the underbelly of selling iOS and OS X developer software, according to a new report.
Apple’s new MacBook Pro features a stunning 2880×1800 Retina display that makes any other screen look like pixelated junk. Because the next-gen 2012 MacBook Pro packs so many pixels in an insane resolution on a 15-inch display, it can be difficult to find great wallpapers that are optimized correctly. Luckily, we’ve collected the best resources on the internet to help you find the most beautiful wallpapers possible.
It’s been rumored for many months that Apple will release a smaller ‘iPad Mini’ to compete with cheaper Android tablets and devices like the Kindle Fire.
After Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is indeed working on a smaller version of its popular iPad tablet, a fresh report from Japanese blog Macotakara reveals some more alleged details about the forthcoming device.
The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) “evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it’s designed and manufactured.” For years, Apple has been one of the EPEAT’s key supporters, with many of the Cupertino company’s computers earning the highest ratings in the industry.
As one of the biggest proponents of green technology and environment friendly packaging, it’s a tad shocking that Apple itself is withdrawing its 39 products from the EPEAT. This means that none of the company’s products technically meet the industry’s green standard anymore. Many large companies, educational institutions, and the U.S. federal government require computers to come with an EPEAT certification, meaning a large portion of the enterprise and education sectors could be barred from purchasing Apple products now.
I’ve been jailbreaking my iOS devices for a couple of years now, and to be perfectly honest, I’ve thought about going back to the stock version of iOS many times. Sometimes I’ll ask myself if it’s really worth jailbreaking my iPhone. iOS 5 brought a lot of features that were only available for jailbreakers previously, and iOS 6 is adding several more.
Before the jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1 came out, I was considering abandoning Cydia, the jailbreak’s App Store equivalent, for good. I didn’t think I needed to jailbreak anymore.
And in most cases, you don’t really need to jailbreak ever. But since the iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak, I’ve fallen in love with my jailbroken iPhone 4S all over again. Here’s why.
We’ve all been waiting with bated breath for Apple to take the mobile payment industry by storm and bring it to the mass consumer market. For years, there have been whispers that Apple is working on its own approach to reinventing mobile payments, including the possibility of a NFC-equipped iPhone. When Apple unveiled Passbook in iOS 6 last month, the company announced its first real foray into mobile payments by partnering with select companies for handling virtual goods like coupons and airline tickets.
According to a new report on The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Passbook is only a shadow of things to come. The company is “deliberately” working on its own mobile payment system, and while the rest of its competitors scramble to test the waters, Apple is sitting back and developing the right strategy.
Italian designer Federico Ciccarese is well known throughout the blogosphere for his Apple product concepts. Chances are that you’ve seen his gorgeous iPad Mini and iPhone 5 concept designs in recent months.
Ciccarese has released a futuristic iPhone concept that takes a very different approach to wearable technology. Kinda creepy, right?
According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, Best Buy is prototyping a new retail store experience that borrows heavily from the Apple Store. Unlike the traditional retail layout of cluttered displays and long checkout lines, Best Buy is testing a more open environment that allows customers to pay at multiple locations in the store.
Also borrowing from Apple’s strategy, the whole retail experience focuses more on connecting customers with Best Buy employees to help answer questions about products. The test store is located near Best Buy’s headquarters in Richfield, Minnesota.
Tried of staring at Apple’s default galaxy wallpaper on your brand new MacBook Pro with Retina display? Need a change of pace on your iPhone and iPad? How about a gorgeous, minimal wallpaper that’s been crafted for each of Apple’s Retina devices?
Instagram designer Tim Van Damme decided to create a multicolor wallpaper design and give it away for everyone to enjoy. “Inspired by the gorgeous screen of the new Retina MacBook Pro, I wanted to design a new wallpaper for all my Retina devices (MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad), and my 27″ Cinema Display.”
I have to say, the 2880×1800 MacBook Pro version is stunning. Head over to Tim’s Dribble account to download each wallpaper. I’m rocking them on all of my devices, and I couldn’t be happier.
Adding more fuel to the ‘iPad Mini’ fire, a new report from Bloomberg says that Apple is planning to launch a cheaper 7-inch iPad in October. The device will feature a non-Retina 1024×768 display. In theory, the third-gen iPad would still serve as Apple’s premium tablet with a Retina display and faster internals, and the 7-inch iPad would be priced around $200 to compete with tablets like the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7.
“The Mac is still growing, and I think it could still grow, but I strongly believe that the tablet market will surpass the unit sales of the PC market.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that at a Goldman Sachs conference several months ago. Cook has been one the industry’s most vocal proponent of tablets as the future of modern computing, and recent statistics support his argument. According to new data, traditional notebook computers will take a backseat to tablets in four years. By 2016, tablet shipments are estimated to surpass notebook shipments.
You may occasionally wonder why Apple allows so much crap into the App Store. Despite there being thousands of excellent apps, hundreds of thousands of apps in the App Store’s 600,000+ catalog are worthless pieces or junk and/or knockoffs. Apps often slip into the store that should have never been allowed in the first place, and Apple has to pull the offending app after everyone else takes notice.
Apple employs a small group of people to approve each app that is submitted to the App Store. Mike Lee, a former senior engineer at Apple, has shed some light on what life is like for the people who guard the gateway to the largest and most vibrant app ecosystem in existence.
The brand-spanking new Google Nexus 7 is arguably the biggest non-Apple tablet announcement since Amazon debuted the Kindle Fire. With a starting price of $200, the Nexus 7 isn’t really intended to be an iPad killer, although Google wouldn’t mind cutting out a piece of Apple’s pie.
The guys at iFixit recently tore down the Google Nexus 7, and their findings revealed that a one millimeter difference in thickness makes Google’s tablet infinitely more repairable than Apple’s iPad.
Google released its Chrome browser on the iOS platform last week, and it wasn’t long before the app shot to the top of the App Store’s charts. People clearly wanted a change of pace, and Apple’s Mobile Safari just wasn’t cutting it.
If you’re a Google Chrome for iOS fanatics out there, you’ll be pleased to hear that a couple new Cydia tweaks have surfaced to make Google Chrome the best Safari replacement around.
Apple unveiled its beta.icloud.com website today after the portal went live briefly a couple months ago. Developers can log into the beta iCloud website now and test out Apple’s two brand new web companion apps for Notes and Reminders. The Find My iPhone web app has also been updated with a new look and slight improvements.
We’ve got a quick walkthrough (including screenshots) of the changes revealed in the iCloud beta website today.
Apple has announced a long-overdue App Store category addition today to developers. A dedicated “Food & Drink” category will be added to the iOS App Store “in the next few weeks,” according to Apple. A category for cooking apps already exists, but related apps like OpenTable will be included in this new category.
As Apple continues to enhance the App Store with new improvements and curated series like Editor’s Choice, this new “Food & Drink” section will surely be a welcome addition when it goes live.
Apple has announced to investors that it will hold its official company earnings call for the Q3 fiscal quarter of 2012 on Tuesday, July 24th. The call with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will take place at 2 p.m. PST, or, 5 p.m. EST. Per usual, the audio call will be streamed live via QuickTime on Apple’s Investor Relations web portal.
Cult of Mac will be providing breaking coverage during the earnings call. Apple reported $39.2 billion in revenue for Q2 2012, and the company is expected to report around $34 billion in revenue this time around. iPhone and iPad sales will likely account for a large portion of the call, and there’s a good chance we could see some early sales numbers for the new Macs Apple launched last month.
The makers of popular Mail.app replacement Sparrow have updated the app with Retina graphics for the 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Sparrow 1.6.2 can be downloaded as a free update for existing users.
Developers can also test Sparrow on OS X Mountain Lion, and the app will be ready for prime time when Mountain Lion becomes available to the public later this month.
Michael Jurewitz has served as the face of Apple to the third party developer community for the past seven years. Frequently seen at Tech Talks around the world and at WWDC each year meeting with developers, Jurewitz today announced that he has left Apple to become a partner at Black Pixel, the company behind apps like NetNewsWire and Kaleidoscope.
Marking the end of the longstanding trademark dispute over the name “iPad,” Apple has agreed in Chinese court to pay a $60 million settlement fee to Proview Technology. Once the money is transferred, the settlement will officially end the court battles between the two companies.
Proview originally accused Apple of stealing its iPad trademark in February 2012 on Chinese soil, and the legal dispute has continued since. The U.S. California court ruled against Proview’s accusation earlier this year, and Guangdong High People’s Court reports that Apple and Proview have reached an agreement that Apple will shell out a cool $60 million to close the case once and for all.
The guys at VideoLAN have updated their hugely popular VLC media player app with a host of improvements and Retina graphics for the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. VLC has been download over 1 billion times across Mac, Windows, and Linux computers, and version 2.0.2 is out now and available for free.
As a formidable QuickTime replacement, the latest VLC media player improves video playback, adds more video output options, includes multiple bug fixes, and more for Mac users.
Apple has been warning users about the imminent death of MobileMe since last year, and July 1st 2012 marks the day MobileMe shuts down for good. MobileMe’s iDisk and Gallery features have also been axed in favor of Apple’s newer iCloud offerings.
The good news is that MobileMe users still have the chance to retrieve and migrate their data to iCloud. Apple has made it easy to make the transition, and files can be saved directly from existing MobileMe Galleries and iDisks before it’s too late.