CarPlay could be the best thing to happen to your automobile’s dashboard since GPS, but unless you’re buying a Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz or Volvo sometime soon, it’s been unclear when you could actually expect your vehicle to support Apple’s new automotive standard?
No time soon, alas. Two representatives of major aftermarket brands have shot down the notion that you can expect aftermarket CarPlay systems coming anytime soon that you can install in your old clunker… and definitely not in 2014.
Curved smartphones the likes of the LG Flex have been widely panned by reviewers as shoddy pieces of junk, yet display experts like Dr. Raymond Soneira of Displaymate tell us that we shouldn’t write them off yet: they actually increase screen readability in ambient light by improving image contrast, color accuracy, and more.
It’s not impossible, then, that Apple will one day choose to embrace curved glass in its smartphones, and if it does, the iPhone 6 would probably end up looking a lot like this gorgeous concept by designer Arthur Reis. It looks really slick, and pretty much indistinguishable from the display of current iPhones until you get up close.
Check it out after the jump. What do you think?
“My phone just erased everything it had in it and rebooted,” NBA superstar LeBron James tweeted earlier today. “One of the sickest feelings I’ve ever had in my life!!!”
Hey, that does sound frustrating. Who can blame him for tweeting his frustration with his Galaxy Note phablet?
There was only one problem.
Although the iTunes Festival has been a great success in the UK for years, it’s only at this year’s SXSW festival that it’s finally come to the States, with Apple arranging for artists such as Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, and Kendrick Lamar to perform free for five nights in Austin, Texas.
What was the hold up? According to Apple’s Eddy Cue, they just weren’t sure they could reproduce the positive vibe anywhere else. But it looks like they’ve succeeded.
Although 4K Monitors are starting to become affordable, OS X hasn’t up until now supported them with the same sophistication it does a Retina Display. Even under Mavericks, the only readable resolution was 3840 x 2160, with no support for OS X’s Retina scaling options.
According to Anand Lal Shimpi of Anandtech, though, this has all changed, with the latest developer build of OS X 10.9.3 supporting the full range of Retina scaling modes for 4K monitors, allowing you to use those extra pixels to make things crisper instead of just smaller.
That’s good news… and probably a hint that whenever Apple releases the Retina iMac, it’ll boast a 3840 x 2160 display, and not the crazy 5120 x 2880 pixel display that would be called for if Apple just doubled the resolution of the 27-inch, as it has with other Retina Macs.
Source: Anandtech
Holographic iPhones armed with pico projectors have been a favorite of concept makers since at least 2011, but some things never go out of style, as SET Solution proves with this stunning concept video of the holographic iPhone 6.
The rumors swirl that when Apple unveils the next iPhone in September this year, it will boast a much larger screen. But what would a thinner, 4.7-inch iPhone with a 1080p display, upgraded 10-megapixel camera, and a 9% thinner enclosure look like?
According to this concept by designer Sam Beckett, nearly identical to the current iPhone 5s. Yes, it would be bigger, but it would otherwise have the same proportions, short of shaving a millimeter or two off of the side bezels.
If Apple does release a so-called iPhone Air, I bet this is how they will actually do it. It will look like a natural evolution of the iPhone line so far, not a major design shift.
Today is Daylight Savings Time in the United States, which is always a hazardous time of year for owners of iOS devices. Why? Because try as Apple might they just can’t seem to release a version of iOS that does not have that are triggered by the switch to Daylight Savings Time.
No joke: Apple has had bugs come up in iOS after the switch to Daylight Savings Time in 2010, 2011, and 2012, while 2013 saw a similar New Year’s Bug screw up Do Not Disturb for device owners. Now here we are in 2014. Does iOS 7 contain a Daylight Savings Time bug?
It does! If you open Calendar on your iOS 7 device, you will notice that while the time of your operating system is set correctly, the line marking the time in Calendar is an hour old. It’s a minor bug, but hey, how would we remember Daylight Savings Time at all if our iOS devices didn’t go wonky once a year because of it?
Thanks: Shane C!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvT0MCugb58
In collaboration with Chaotic Moon Studios, Pizza Hut has unveiled a concept for what it will be like to order a pizza in their stores in the future: on a giant, iPad-like touchscreen table, using an iPhone’s built-in NFC for user identification and payment.
What would your desk look like if it were designed with computers — not books, pencils and papers — in mind.
Takes one to know one, Blackberry. The CEO of the beleaguered Canadian smartphone manufacturer — which recently celebrated achieving its first 0% market share since the smartphone wars started — is now calling iPhone owners “wall huggers.”
Those who live their lives glued to their computers love f.lux, a cone-saving app that automatically adjusts the color balance of your Mac (or jailbroken iPhone or iPad’s) display at sunset or sunrise so it’s easier to read.
For f.lux lovers, though, the app just got a lot better on the Mac. Previously, F.lux’s only consideration was whether the sun had risen or set, but now, it takes into account your body’s circadian rhtyhm. You can actually train f.lux to take into account when you go to sleep and wake up.
If you love the iPhone 5c, here’s a painful chart, courtesy of analytics plaform Mixpanel: growth of the iPhone 5c is pretty much stagnant at just around 6% (roughly where it’s been since Christmas), even as the iPhone 5s has achieved a 20% share of the iPhone market, overtaking the iPhone 4 and approaching the iPhone 4s in popularity.
It was only a matter of time, but here it is: TwelveSouth’s BookBook Case for the iPad Air, which makes your fifth-gen Apple tablet look the very model of some ancient, dusty tome, just plucked off of the shelf from the Library of the House of Usher.
Both obfuscating your iPad’s value from thieves and protecting it, the BookBook Case is a perpetual fave here at Cult of Mac.
Like previous models, it allows you to prop up your iPad at a 30 degree angle, both for typing and movie viewing. It comes in black and brown leather varieties — no red yet, sadly — and costs $79.99.
Source: TwelveSouth
Apple’s surprise announcement of CarPlay turned a lot of heads. Bizarrely running on Blackberry’s QNX platform, of all things, CarPlay will launch through partnerships with Volvo, Mercedes, and Ferrari. But how hard will it be for other developers to add CarPlay support to their apps?
The good news is the answer is: ‘not very.’ But the bad news is, Apple’s the gatekeeper to when that happens, and they won’t open up access until they are convinced CarPlay is safe.
It was only a week ago that Apple released OS X 10.9.2, a critical update that fixed a major SSL vulnerability that allowed anyone on the same WiFi network intercept your data.
In Apple World, though, things never stop moving. So here comes OS X 10.9.3’s first beta, which is now available to developers via Software Update or Apple’s developer portal.
There’s no explicit release notes, although Apple has asked developers to focus on graphics and audio. Thankfully missing is any mention of Mail, which has experienced a number of problems since OS X Mavericks was released last October. Perhaps the debacle is finally over.
Ever since Digg purchased Instapaper from Marco Arment, the news aggregator super site has been adding new features to the somewhat neglected service to better compete with the likes of would-be challengers like Paper.
Continuing that trend, Instapaper for iOS was updated to version 5.1.5 today, bringing some new features, including support for Instapaper’s trending stories, a new send to Amazon Kindle function for subscribers, better AirPlay support, gestures and more.
This week, Oasis Management founder Seth Fischer sent a letter to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, once again demanding that the House That Mario Built release games for the iPhone, iPad and other mobiel platforms.
Want to watch the Oscars this Sunday, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, no need to dust off the television: you can watch it right from your iPhone or iPad via the Watch ABC app. Unfortunately, though, there’s a catch, and a big one.
Many states have laws against using smartphones while driving, for talking and texting… but does that count for Apple Maps? A California appeals court has ruled no.
Amazon is reported to be in discussions with music labels to launch a streaming music service for its Amazon Prime subscription members. Will it be more like Spotify, or iTunes Radio, though?
Although Google bought social mapping service Waze in June of last year, the iOS app is still getting impressive new updates.
The latest? Waze for iOS has just gained Calendar integration. It might not seem useful at first glance, but it’s actually a great addition.
When will the iPhone 6 be released? Ever since the iPhone 4s, Apple has unveiled the next iPhone in September, but at least one analyst is now claiming that Apple might go back to a WWDC launch in 2014.
If you have a brand spanking new Mac Pro, Apple has released a new firmware update that will help it stay quiet and not sound like the jet engine that it may physically resemble.
Recommended for all late 2013 Mac Pros, the Mac Pro SMC Firmware Update 2.0 allows the Mac Pro to enter Power Nap without running the Mac Pro’s fan for most Power Nap activities.
The update also addresses a rare issue where a low-speed USB device may not be detected at boot.
If you’ve already dropped a few grand on a Mac Pro, the good news is the update’s free. You can grab it from the link below.
Source: Apple
Here’s a hard to believe story: one of Apple’s executives behind the original iPhone has gone so far as to apologize to anyone who bought one during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
Why? According to ex-Apple senior director of product marketing for the original iPhone Bob Borchers: “If you had the original iPhone, I apologize; it was not a great phone, it was an OK phone.”
Unbelievably, he may have a point.
