Alex Heath - page 89

WWDC 2012 is already like the VIP party everyone wishes they were special enough to attend. After selling out this morning in just two hours, every spot has already been taken by those who got to register before it was too late. If you missed the window of opportunity, you’re out of luck. No admission. We especially feel bad for you developers on the west coast.

One dev thought it would be a good idea to put his extra WWDC pass up on eBay. The current bid sits at $2,850. What this eBay seller sadly failed to realize is that you can’t actually resell a WWDC ticket.

Following the announcement of the already-sold-out WWDC 2012, Apple has officially begun accepting nominations for its 2012 Apple Design Awards. Mac and iOS apps can be nominated to win the most prestigious developer awards Apple gives each year, and past winners include apps like Infinity Blade and Things.

Registered iOS developers can nominate apps today and Apple will announce the winners at WWDC in June.

Whoa. WWDC 2012 was announced just under two hours ago, and the conference has already sold out. Apple has confirmed the news, and devs who weren’t able to grab a ticket are out of luck.

Three years ago, WWDC sold out in a month. The next year took a week to sell out. 2011 took just 12 hours. This year took 2 hours. How fast will next year sell out?

Amazon today announced its “Send to Kindle” app for Mac users. The free tool can send documents from a Mac to registered Kindle devices (including the iOS Kindle app) wirelessly. Many are unaware that each Kindle account comes with its own email address, and Amazon lets its users send documents to devices through that address. Popular bookmarking service Instapaper also lets its users push articles to a Kindle account for reading later.

The new Send to Kindle app cuts out the email middleman for desktop computer owners.

Several weeks ago we brought you an exclusive look at the HackStore, an upcoming Mac App Store alternative for unapproved OS X apps and tweaks. After finishing up development, the HackStore is now available for everyone to download.

Jailbreaking has its many benefits, but there’s always a risk that installing a certain tweak or app from Cydia will cause something in iOS to go haywire. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you want to be able to fix the problem without having to restore and lose your jailbreak.

Luckily, there’s a relatively easy way to troubleshoot your jailbroken iOS device and find out the exact tweak that’s causing the problem.

App studio Two Lives Left has launched its first App Store game for the iPad, called Cargo-Bot. What makes this release different from the thousands of other iPad games that came before it? Well, Cargo-Bot is the world’s first game to be coded entirely on an iPad itself.

Using a coding app for the iPad they created prior to Cargo-Bot, the guys from Two Lives Left designed and coded their new game on the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen.

The Flashback saga has yet to reach its end, as a recent report debunks earlier claims that the number of infected Macs had fallen from 600,000 to 140,000 over a matter of a few days. Apple released a security tool to combat Flashback last week, and Norton Symantec reported that the number of infected machines had fallen to 140,000 shortly after. That number has been proven to be inaccurate.

In an interesting turn of events, the original Flashback whistleblower, Russian security firm Dr. Web, has revealed that around 650,000 Macs are still infected with the notorious trojan. Not only are there many Macs connected to the botnet that were previously unaccounted for, but more OS X computers are added every day.

Everyone knows that Research In Motion has been on a downward spiral into destruction over the last few years. Sales and profits are plummeting, and the company’s corporate structure is falling apart. The end may be near for the once-popular Blackberry maker.

Recent stats from online trade-in site Gazelle.com reveal that Blackberry trade-ins have increased by 80% over the last month.

Minimalism is a fascinating thing. Our world is getting increasingly loud and busy, yet many are starting to want more minimal and distraction-free experiences. Apps specifically are another way that the minimalism trend can be observed; more and more applications are getting back to the roots by cutting away superfluous effects and features.

Pop is a perfect example of how minimalism manifests itself in a basic iOS app. Unlike other writing apps for the iPhone and iPad, Pop is just a blank pad to jot down text. Nothing else. Nothing at all… But really, that’s all there is.

Update: It appears that the app’s developer has started replacing the channels with ads for “Futubox.” A classic scam. The app did work at one point, but we no longer recommended buying it now.

Update 2: It looks like Apple has yanked it from the App Store.

A $0.99 iOS app has surfaced over the weekend in the App Store called “TV English Premium.” The universal app allows anyone to stream 55 premium TV channels live without paying for a subscription. An iPhone or iPad also does not need to be jailbroken to stream for free. For only $0.99, you can have access to many BBC and premium U.S. TV channels in HD on your iOS device.

Cydia is home to one too many lock screen tweaks. There are classic packages like LockInfo that enhance the iOS lock screen with all kinds of handy shortcuts and features, but there’s also tweaks like LockLauncher that are messy and ugly. With that said, FastLock is a refreshingly simple take on lock screen shortcuts for jailbroken iPhones.

Popular music recognition app Shazam released a standalone music player for the iPhone back in January. The app lets you scan your iPhone’s library and play back tracks with Shazam’s lyric service, LyricPlay. You can also queue tracks and create playlists specifically for the Shazam Player.

As of today Shazam has updated its music player app for the iPad. The latest update packs LyricPlay and Retina graphics.

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell recently addressed the rumor that Apple CEO Tim Cook visited his company last week in an interview with Seven Day Cooldown. Newell flat out denied the rumor, originally published by AppleInsider, that Tim Cook visited Valve HQ.

Cult of Mac originally added to the rumor by saying that Apple could have been meeting with Valve because Apple is working on its own type of gaming console for the living room, and was potentially looking for partnering with Valve.

While it’s been revealed that Cook did not in fact visit Valve, our sources have again reiterated that Apple is absolutely continuing with its plans for a living room gaming presence regardless of Valve involvement.

Many have speculated that Apple’s next iPhone will have lightning fast LTE ‘4G’ networking speeds. Chipset maker Qualcomm has been experiencing incredible demand for its next generation  28-nanometer LTE chips, and industry watchers are saying that device markers are having to adjust their LTE product roadmaps accordingly for 2012.

This news could be a factor in why Apple’s sixth-gen iPhone probably won’t hit the shelves this summer if it does indeed come with LTE. Instead, analysts are predicting an October rollout, mimicking the iPhone 4S launch just last year.

We’ve already told you about JailbreakCon, the world’s first jailbreak convention. The event will be held in the United States this September in sunny San Francisco, California. Tickets are on sale now, and we hope to see many Cult of Mac readers there this fall.

The Flashback trojan has been making the news after it was discovered that 600,000 Macs had been infected with the malware. Apple released security patches to combat the update, and a recent update from Norton Symantec indicated that the number of infected Macs dropped to 140,000 4 days later.

Now another statement from Russian security firm Kaspersky reveals that the number of infected Macs has plummeted to 30,000. According to Kaspersky, Mac users should start being more wary of malware when surfing the web.

Apple finally gave the notice that it would be killing off MobileMe once and for all on June 30th, 2012. The soon-to-be-defunct service has already been replaced with iCloud, but Mac users who are still not running an OS X version older than Snow Leopard can’t hop on the bandwagon. You must have Snow Leopard installed to then install OS X Lion from the Mac App Store and gain access to iCloud. And chances are that if you’re still using MobileMe, you aren’t running the latest version of OS X.

Apple’s retail division is like none other in the world. Ron Johnson and Steve Jobs created the most profitable, and arguably best overall, consumer retail experience together way back in 2001. Fast forward to today and Apple Stores are outperforming all other retailers by a wide margin.

Specifically, new research shows that Apple Stores are performing 17 times better than the average retailer. Two luxury brands, Tiffany and Coach, trail behind in a distance second and third.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently accused Apple and 5 large book publishers of conspiring to raise e-Book prices in the iBookstore. Experts said that it would be unlikely for Apple to be found as guilty of collusion, and now the Cupertino company is wanting a trial to defend itself against the DoJ’s accusations.

Rumors have been saying for many, many months that Apple is working on a standalone TV set (dubbed ‘iTV’) that will revolutionize the way we consume media from traditional content providers and the internet. Steve Jobs himself added more fuel to the fire when he told biographer Walter Isaacson that he had “finally cracked it,” referring to an integrated TV set. He wasn’t talking about the black set-top box Apple currently sells for $99.

Questions have been raised regarding the plausibility of Apple releasing its own TV set. Is this an example of the rumor mill spiraling out of control, or is Apple actually planning a full-on assault to take over the living room?

Apple has released its third OS X Mountain Lion developer preview in the Dev Center. Build 12A178q of Mountain Lion is available for free to registered Mac developers, and it comes with a number of tweaks and changes. This release follows the second developer preview of Mountain Lion that was issued on March 16th.

The dirty secrets surrounding Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram have remained relatively unkown, until now. Many were taken aback by the incredible amount of money Facebook dropped on the photography app, but it turns out that Instagram wanted more than $1 billion. It’s been revealed by The Wall Street Journal that Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom originally pitched his app to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a price tag of $2 billion.

The notorious Flashback trojan infected 600,000 Macs over the last year. We’ve been following Flashback closely, and Apple started waging its war on the botnet earlier this month. After releasing two security updates and one final tool to remove Flashback from infected Macs, Apple has nearly killed Flashback once and for all.

According to new research from Norton Symantec research, Flashback now infects around 140,000 Macs. That’s a significant drop considering Apple’s removal tool was only released 4 days ago.

Many started speculating about the possibility of a 4-inch iPhone when a guy named Colin made a very interesting argument for such a device one week ago. The rumor mill has been saying for months that a larger iPhone is coming, but no one had really thought about how it would actually work. Colin proposed that Apple would need to simply change the aspect ratio from 3:2 to a stretchy 16:9. Brilliant, right?

Not so fast. There are multiple reasons why an elongated iPhone screen would not work.