On April 1st, 1976, Apple Computers was officialy founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I computer kit, personally hand-built by Wozniak himself. Thirty-seven years later, Apple is the most successful and profitable technology company in the world.
There’s no way to celebrate an anniversary that weighty with proper due reverence, so let’s celebrate it in a more frivolous (and delicious) way: looking at the best Apple-themed birthday cakes ever baked!
Apple has a strict “no porn allowed” policy on the App Store, but what if your softcore porn magazine is also known for its thoughtful writing, its incredible reviews and it’s award-winning journalism?
Simple. You launch your magazine in the App Store without any nudity at all. And that’s just what Playboy is doing.
Speck is the Trojan of iPhone cases: you might not want to wear one, but they’re everywhere, and it’s better than going bareback. Speck’s colorful, buttony cases are pretty much ubiquitous, and one of the most easily recognizable iPhone case brands out there.
In fact, Speck is so recognizable that there are aapparently counterfeit Speck cases on the market… and Speck is so honked off about it that they are suing the maker of these fake Speck cases for mllions.
Late last year, Cult of Mac reported that New York City’s crime rate had increased for the first time in twenty years, not due to the resurgence of criminal gangs like the Warriors and the Baseball Furies, but because the iPhone was just such a popular thing to steal.
Why are criminals so interested in ripping off iPhones, though, and not, say, Samsung Galaxy S III’s? What it all comes down to is two things. One, the predictability of the resale market: you can predict what you can pawn an iPhone for, but other gadgets are harder. Two: an iPhone or iPad is easy to identify at a glance, where as other lucrative gadgets are harder to spot.
Apple and Foxconn’s jumper problem might not be a thing of the past after all, as reports over the weekend broke that two workers have jumped from the roof of Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory on Friday in reaction to job cuts, lowered wages and the end of free amenities at the world’s largest gadget manufacturer.
The iPad mini is one of Apple’s biggest successes to date, but that doesn’t matter to the US Patent and Trademark Office, which has turned down Apple’s request for a trademark on the iPad mini because it is “merely descriptive.”
Artist Maico Akiba takes everyday gadgets and then imagines them as they would look if dug up from a landfill a hundred years from now. This is what Akiba thinks the iPhone 3G will look like in 2107.
Got to say, I’m skeptical the screen will hold up that well. There’s more art by Akiba at the link below.
Source: Maico Akiba
Via: iSmashiPhone
If you think that last week’s huge security hole that allowed anyone with your Apple ID email address and birth date to reset your password was just a fluke, this damning report by Tim Carmody over at The Verge might just change your mind.
It’s a compelling argument that says that Apple is being extremely negligent and sloppy when it comes to your iCloud data’s security.
Do you hate in-app purchases? Sick of downloading an app only to discover its borderline unusable until you drop an extra five bucks? Sick of games that aren’t play to win, but pay to win?
Tough noogies. In-app purchases account for a staggering 76% of all iPhone App Store revenue, with 71% of all iPhone app revenue coming from in-app purchases for total free apps.
If there’s any comfort to be had from U.S. IAP haters, at least there’s this: Americans spend, on average, only about a buck in in-app purchases per download. In Japan, it’s four times that amount.
Source: Distimo
Without a doubt, my favorite Mountain Lion feature is AirPlay Mirroring, which allows me to easily mirror whatever is happening on my Mac to my Apple TV. My girlfriend and I use it pretty much all the time to watch movies at night — I digitized our vast DVD collection long ago to save space. It’s truly indispensible to me.
Although I love AirPlay Mirroring, the feature still has two main issues. First of all, AirPlay Mirroring doesn’t work at all on Macs released before 2011, meaning that my 2009-era 27-inch iMac can’t easily stream anything off of its 3.25 TB (rolled-at-home) Fusion Drive. There are apps like AirParrot that get around that limitation, but I’ve always found them to be a little bit strange and laggy, doing weird things like letterboxing my iMac’s display on all sides.
Even if you have a Mac that is newer than 2011, though, there’s one major limitation of AirPlay Mirroring: if you’re streaming a movie to your Apple TV using AirPlay Mirroring, you can’t actually do anything else with your Mac while the movie is playing. If you switch away from the video player to check your email or your Twitter account, it’s all mirrored on the screen.
What I have always wanted is this: the ability to easily stream a movie to my Apple TV from any Mac in my house, while allowing me to still use my Mac without disrupting the viewing experience.
Today, I discovered a gem of an app that lets me do all of this. It’s called Beamer and it frickin’ rocks.
Here’s a fantastic blast from the past. Back in the early 80s, there was a show called Computer Chronicles that was sort of a televised proto-podcast about the world of personal computing. In this episode from back in 1985, the Computer Chronicles put the vintage Apple Macintosh — released just a year before — through its paces, including a talk with Larry Tesler, a legendary engineer who was part of the Xerox PARC team, Palo Alto’s famous R&D center that gave Steve Jobs the idea for the Macintosh GUI and the venerable computer mouse.
Sadly, we can’t get the video to embed, so if this piques your interest and for more information on the show, be sure to check out this article on Wired for the whole thing. It’s a great way to wile away the morning on this Good Friday.
Source: Wired
We’ve openly speculated that the Evasi0n jailbreak might be the last public jailbreak now that Apple has closed the security holes that makes evasi0n work, but maybe we spoke too soon: well-known jailbreaker posixninjasays he’s collected enough new exploits in iOS 6.1.3 to patch together another jailbreak.
Apple can’t catch a break in China lately. The Chinese state run press has been targeting Apple in a series of increasingly vicious attack pieces, while Apple simultaneously defends itself in court against allegations of patent violation. Now, China’s oldest animation studio is accusing Apple of stealing their movies and selling them on the iTunes store, without paying a cent.
Looks like even Steve Wozniak wants Apple to release a Siri API to third-party developers, and he has a pretty good idea how it would work: a lot like AppleScript, basically. For example, to do something in Foursquare, you’d launch Siri, say “Foursquare” and then anything you said after that would be parsed through the Foursquare app. Sounds good to me… maybe with iOS 7?
Hot on the heels of word that Apple was launching a new campaign to try to woo video professionals back into the embrace of Final Cut Pro, Apple has released Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.8, adding new features and shoring up some weaknesses.
A new report suggests that the next iPad mini will be getting a new touch panel supplier, and guess what? It’s not Samsung.
The tiny Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus has fallen on some hard times lately.
The bleak financial prospects facing Cyprus has resulted in the govenment having to come up with capital control measures to prevent runs on banks, and keep investors from taking money out of the country. Worse, depositors in Cypriot banks who have more than 100,000 euros in the bank could soon see 40% of their funds converted into bank shares, while those with less than 100,000 euros will not lose any funds – but face limits on what funds they can access.
It’s all looking bleak, and the Cypriot situation has all of the Euro zone panicking. What should Cyprus do? According to one commentator, let Apple buy them.
I’m a sucker for wood paneling my Apple products, and so I’m absolutely going to have to do this: the guys over at RAWBKNY (whom we’ve written about before) are now selling laser-etched replacement keys for the MacBook Pro.
They look great, and Michael over at RAWBKNY says that while they are only designed for the non-Retina MacBook Pro right now, he’s tweaking it so it should work on the Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Airs soon.
We’ve got a review unit on the way to see how well these work, but be warned: replacing every key on your MacBook is likely to be a time consuming process. $40 will get you a set.
Source: RAWBKNY
Wow, this is incredible. Redditor Kepgnar works in the tech department of a charter school. Every month, one of the departments has to put together a message for the school’s official announcement chalkboard.
Here’s what Kepgnar came up with: a meticulously drawn “Think Different.” logo with an actually working QR code which, when scanned, leads to the YouTube version of the original commercial narrated by Steve Jobs.
How’d Kepgnar do the QR code? They designed it, then projected it onto the chalkboard and traced it. Talk about thinking differently.
Source: Reddit
Over at Asymco, Horace Dediu has compared Apple’s retail economy versus Amazon, and while the results aren’t anything we haven’t seen before — Amazon has annual revenue about twice the size of Apple’s retail revenue, but makes only 10% of Apple’s same operating income on that revenue — it’s informative to see it laid out so clearly. Check it out.
Source: Asymco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ku0H10_G1X4
One of the curses of being an innovator is every time you innovate, someone comes along and says they had a patent on it first. Apple knows this dilemma well, and the latest patent infringement claim Cupertino has to defend itself against is in China over Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant.
Okay, this is rad. YouTube user HM231 had no use for his car stereo’s old, crusty audio cassette slot, so what did he do? Hollow it out and mount a 30-pin connector inside it so he could slide in his iPod instead to pump up the jams. Rad!
Via: Reddit
If you own a Retina MacBook Pro, here’s a nice little perk to upgrading to OS X 10.8.3: you’ll get about 20 minutes more battery life per charge.
Hey, T-Mobile is finally an iPhone carrier now! Not only that, they’re a pretty competitive one, offering you an iPhone 5 for just $100 down and $20 a month over 24 months in what the nation’s fourth-largest carrier is calling a “no bullshit” plan. If you buy an iPhone 5 at T-Mobile, you can leave at any time as long as you pay off your device; otherwise, your service is provided month by month.
Sounds pretty great, but how competitive is T-Mobile’s new iPhone plan compared to the competition really? We compared the cheapest T-Mobile iPhone 5 plan you can get against the 24 month cost of getting one from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Cricket, Virgin Mobile and Straight Talk. The result? T-Mobile is one of the cheaper plans around… but it’s not the cheapest.
It’s pretty much a forgone conclusion that any time we review a bag or case by Waterfield Designs, we’re going to love them. The San Francisco based company is such a maestro at stripping a cow to its bones then stitching the tanned hide up into a premier laptop or tablet case that dishing out an enthusiastic review of yet another one is starting to feel like a matter of course.
So it’s with a profound sense of relief that I can report that Waterfield Design’s CitySlicker MacBook case is the worst thing anyone’s ever made, ever. That includes the Fred series of movies. Scotch-taped together from what appears to be a beef jerky flavored Fruit Roll-Up, the City Slicker….
*snicker*
Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face. Just kidding! The CitySlicker is an awesomely stylish protective case for your MacBook Air that can double as a very streamlined laptop bag or attache case. Oh, and it also makes a pretty awesome lap desk. It’s just as good a product as any that Waterfield has ever made. But it’s definitely not for everyone.
