If you don’t have several hundred million in the bank, and a massive company to lord over, it’s hard for us normal folk to emulate Steve Jobs.
But you could build a sound system like Steve’s.
Based on an iconic portrait of Jobs in his almost empty Woodside, California home in 1982, Wired pieced together the various stereo components needed to build a hi-fi system, endorsed by the man with a taste for nothing less than excellence.
If you ever want to see the difference between Apple and Google as companies, look no further than the fact that Google’s latest Chrome update for the simply-named iOS 7.0 is the bafflingly-titled version 34.0.1847.18.
That minor irritation aside, the mobile update does add some nifty new features — including a new “feature tour” that shows off the browser and its new enhancements to first time users.
There’s also an included tweak to Chrome’s omnibox, which means that the omnibox now supports right-to-left languages: something that should prove useful to some international users.
I’ve always hated running. When I’m asked, I jokingly say that the ten years of life I probably lose by not focusing on cardio-vascular exercise, I make up for by not feeling compelled to jog in a big circle each day after work, or talk about running shoes at dinner parties.
But if there’s one thing that could get me running it’s a zombie apocalypse — in which members of the once-dead rise again to try and feast on my brain and internal organs. And I’m definitely not the only one.
Gamified fitness app Zombies, Run! was launched a couple of years ago, but has just been updated with a number of new features.
For those unfamiliar with it, Zombies, Run! replaces your regular running soundtrack with a zombie story in which you are the main character — with your level of physical exertion playing a part as you outrun zombie hordes, collect supplies, and eventually return (brain intact) to base camp.
A funny thing happened on the way to the iPod’s funeral. When we laid out the reasons we think the music player is nearing the end of the line, we clearly struck a nerve.
A lengthy and fascinating conversation broke out in the page’s comments section, on Facebook and on Twitter as Cult of Mac readers articulated all the reasons Apple shouldn’t kick the iPod to the curb. Reasons ranged from forward-looking strategies for expanding the iPod’s appeal to old-fashioned love for a perennial favorite product.
Here are highlights from eight of the best:
As rumors continue to swell about Apple’s long-awaited leap into wearable tech, the U.S. Patent & Trademarks Office Tuesday granted a new patent covering an iWatch-like device form factor.
While Apple only lists a “wrist-watch device” as one of the possible applications of its planned electronic device, everything about the patent is in line with what we’ve heard about the iWatch.
The patent covers the housing for a device which would include wireless circuits such as transceiver circuits, and optical components such as light sensors and cameras.
For years Macs have had the reputation of being less susceptible to malware than PCs. According to a new report, that also holds true when it comes to iPhones.
Research by Finnish security firm F-Secure looked at reports of mobile malware detected in the first quarter of 2014. Of the 277 new threats detected, they found that 275 were aimed at the Android platform — while only one targeted iPhones. (The other was for Nokia’s defunct Symbian software.)
In New York on May 20? If you are, own an iPhone, and fancy drumming up some business for local bars, you may want to get involved with the so-called “BeaconCrawl.”
An interactive bar crawl event, supporting venues in lower New York hit by 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, BeaconCrawl will use iBeacons to help gamify the experience of staggering between drinking establishments, getting increasingly legless.
Apple Maps may not shed any light on how Stonehenge was constructed (my personal favorite theory is that it was a particularly rubbish-sounding ancient team-building event), but it can now give you a beautiful 3D view of the ancient stone circle.
As expected, Apple has introduced its refreshed line of MacBook Air models this morning. The updates don’t bring any major changes, but sport faster versions of Intel’s Haswell processors, and are $100 cheaper than their predecessors.
In preparation for Mark Zuckerberg’s evil plan of making us all download Messenger in order to carry on our Facebook conversations, Facebook Messenger has just received a spit-shine of an update.
Version 5.0 of the app adds several new features and improvements. Among these is a slightly revamped interface which makes sending photos and voice messages easier than before. In addition, users can now send videos directly from their device’s Camera Roll to friends, with these videos playing directly in the app itself.
Full disclosure up front: I was a huge fan of the Sonic series back in the day. As a result, sitting down to play Sonic the Hedgehog 2 I was of two minds: one part of me happy to be replaying a game I had enjoyed so much in childhood; the other part worried that this would be a lazy cash-in on the part of Sega.
Was I right to be concerned? Yes, is the short answer. Ever since the late 1990s, Sonic games have been the model of inconsistency: good efforts at reviving Sega’s flagship character quickly brought back down to earth by frankly shocking attempts at new installments.
I didn’t play the first stab at bringing Sonic 2 to iOS, but reportedly it was pretty uninspiring stuff — featuring sound problems, rubbish virtual controls, a windowed play area and (perhaps worst of all for our speedy hedgehog friend) slowdown issues.
So how has the game fared this time for the re-release?
Remember that original Apple Lisa computer you’ve got in the basement, boxed next to your old VHS player and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toys? It may be time to dust it off and take it an auction house.
That’s based on the news that a Lisa 1 (a.k.a. Apple’s first computer to come with a graphical interface and a mouse) is expected to fetch $42,000 when it goes under the hammer in Germany late next month.
Coming off another record quarter, it’s hardly a surprise to find out that iPhone sales are looking pretty healthy globally.
A new report from research firm Kantar Worldpanel shows just how healthy they are, however, by analyzing worldwide smartphone sales over the twelve-week January-March period. The report shows that strong sales of Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s have helped regain market share in places such as Europe, Japan and Australia.
Remember when your first discovered Wikipedia and spent hours hyperlinking from page to page, reading random entries on everything from the numbering of U.S. highways to John Cage’s “As Slow As Possible?”
I had that feeling again over the weekend when I found Das Referenz, a new iPad app which takes it inspiration from old encyclopaedias and typeface design to create what is almost certainly the most beautiful Wikipedia browsing experience out there.
Jailbreaking your iPhone is of questionable wisdom these days, but this new tweak is pretty cool.
Called Convergance, it promises users a complete, all-in-one Lock screen replacement package for iOS. The package’s features extend across four main areas: widgets, theming, HTML, and APIs for developers.
Anyone whose iOS device is missing a certain speedy blue hedgehog can rejoice this week, thanks to a new sale that has seen Sega drop the price of several of its Sonic iOS games.
Currently both Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic The Hedgehog 2 can be picked up for just 99¢ each (down from their normal price of $2.99), while Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is now available for free.
ComiXology has long been one of my favorite iOS apps, but I’m not a big fan of the latest update, which makes it impossible to purchase comics from within the app.
For the longest time, ComiXology was the easiest and best way to buy comics on a mobile device. Now the app has become solely a comic book reader: You must visit ComiXology’s website to buy new issues. You can still browse comics in the app, and download free ones, but the actual payment part must be done elsewhere.
Why has ComiXology gone all supervillain on us?
For the moment, the Apple doom-mongers have been silenced by another record quarter. But there’s one area where things are down, and still dropping. It’s the iPod division, and it’s the closest thing Apple has to a dead man walking.
Sales of the music player continue to plummet as more people buy iPhones than ever, and listeners move away from music downloads toward streaming services like Spotify, Pandora and iTunes Radio.
Should Apple ditch the iconic product line that first signaled Apple’s expansion beyond computers — or is there some way the business can be turned around?
Read on to find out where things currently stand.
Take this with a pinch of iSalt, perhaps, but a new set of alleged iPhone 6 renderings have surfaced online.
Hailing from the Ukrainian website UkrainianiPhone, they confirm a lot of what we’re already expecting — including the relocated sleep/wake button (moved to the side to make it more easily usable with the larger form factor) and a circular iSight flash.
One notable difference between this design and the mock-ups we’ve seen in the past, however, relates to the device’s rear shell. While previous renderings show a solid back cover, these shots suggest that Apple is leaving breaks in the chassis for the antenna.
When Nike announced it was shutting down its FuelBand division and exiting the hardware business, many speculated that the company would be teaming up with Apple for the long-awaited iWatch.
Nike didn’t exactly do much to cool the rumors either — issuing a statement that claimed the two companies would “continue to partner on emerging technologies to create better solutions for all athletes.”
Now Nike Chief Executive Officer Mark Parker has poured more fuel on the fire, saying that sportswear company is committed to focusing on software, and is “excited” about its relationship with Apple.
SITU — a smart food scale created by a former Apple employee — is close to reaching its Kickstarter goal, and there’s still time to get involved.
An attractive Bluetooth scale which talks to your iPad, SITU works by showing you the exact nutrition content of any food you place on it — letting you see the exact number of calories, sugar, salt, protein, vitamins and minerals of whatever it is that you’re about to eat.
With just six days left to go, and £32,124 ($54K) already raised of the £35,000 ($59K) target, creator Michael Grothaus spoke with Cult of Mac about the project, and his history with Apple.
Does your iPhone 5 suffer from a dodgy power button? If so, Apple will repair it free of charge, according to a new announcement made by the company.
“Apple has determined that the sleep/wake button mechanism on a small percentage of iPhone 5 models may stop working or work intermittently,” Apple states. “iPhone 5 models manufactured through March 2013 may be affected by this issue.”
iPhone users experiencing the problem can visit Apple’s website, enter their phone’s serial number and — hey presto! — see if their device is one of the faulty ones Apple is referring to.
Remember the olden days when you had to phone up and order a pizza — or worse still, trudge down the road to go and pick one up in person?
Thankfully that dystopian past will be well and truly over come Monday, when Domino’s Pizza launches its new iPad app — which lets you build your own custom pizzas, and then order them for take-out and delivery from the comfort of your own couch.
Making this app particularly nifty is that the 3-D pizza builder uses rendering application OpenGL to give you a realistic photo-effect image of what your final pizza will (or should) look like upon delivery.
If you’re a Pinterest user, you may be interested in a new mobile app feature being rolled out by the photo-sharing site.
Called ‘Guided Search,’ the tool makes it easier to explore Pinterest when you’re not exactly sure what it is that you want to find.
Forget about a close run race — the iPad is absolutely obliterating Android tablets when it comes to web traffic stats.
The data, which comes from Chitika Insights, looks at the distribution of Web usage across leading tablet devices for early April 2014.
Based on a sampling of tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian tablet-based online ad impressions, it leaves no question who’s ruling the tablet roost.