Luke Dormehl - page 351

A large number of users have reported issues with a problematic status bar in iOS immediately following a jailbreak.

While it’s hardly the biggest issue for a liberated iOS device to encounter, having the carrier name, signal status and remaining battery turn from white to black — or sometimes not vanish when it’s supposed to — while using certain apps can be both annoying and overall detrimental to user experience. Thanks to a straightforward resolution , however, that issue can now be sorted out in the form of a Cydia package installation by following these steps:

I’ll be honest: Missile Command was never my favorite classic game from the glory days of Atari. Originally released as a coin-op in 1980, designed by Dave Theurer (the man who also created Tempest and the world’s first commercial game to feature 3-D polygonal graphics, I, Robot), Missile Command came straight out of an era in which the scariest thing imaginable was a nuclear attack.

For any longtime Apple fans, it’s amazing to think that today marks 30 years since the January 22, 1984 airing of the Nineteen Eighty Four-inspired Macintosh commercial, directed by Ridley Scott.

Not only did the commercial usher in Apple’s most famous desktop computer brand, but it also served as a perfect articulation of the Apple identity: an identity that continues along the same lines three decades later.

Despite the lack of concrete news available on the subject, we’re hardly short of concept designs for Apple’s eventual iWatch.

This one, by San Francisco UI designer Todd Hamilton, is among the best yet — a sleek design that resembles a cross between the Nike Fuelband and an iPhone.

The team behind cult drawing app DrawQuest have sadly announced that it will be closing shop.

For those unfamiliar with it, DrawQuest is was an iOS app — originally for iPad, but with an iPhone version launched in November last year — that set daily drawing challenges to a niche community of artists.

In a blog post on the DrawQuest site, app creator Christopher “moot” Poole (also the man behind 4Chan) wrote the following:

Adobe has issued an update to Adobe Reader, its popular PDF reader app.

Version 11.2.0 introduces a new design that matches the look and feel of iOS 7. The new look includes alterations to the color scheme as well as plain glyphs, as well as improvements and relocation of menu bars for better navigation.

The update also places recently viewed documents up front, adds a better integrated help system, and includes improves single file edit (which lets you perform basic operations without having to open a file) and text selection features (letting you select a single character rather than entire words).

Source: iTunes

Tech companies such as Apple and Google will pay $1 per stop, per day for employee shuttle bus services using public bus stops in San Francisco — according to a new pilot program approved by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).

In a scheme that will bring in around $1.5 million in fees over an 18-month trial, companies such as Apple will pay SFMTA more than $100,000, while smaller tech companies will pay around $80,000 per year. Any money gained will be put back into the program to cover administrative fees, permits, enforcement, and other related costs.

While all attention is currently being placed on the new fourth iOS 7.1 beta, a feature that seems to have skipped most people’s attention is that beta version 3 includes a female counterpart to the British male variant of Siri, which users can choose between.

Less than two weeks after its iOS launch, intelligent news app NewsBrain has received an update that allows it to read news articles aloud to you.

To activate NewsBrain’s text-to-speech capability, simply tap the “share” button or press and hold on an article, before selecting the “speak” option — letting you get caught up with your reading while, for instance, jogging or driving to work.

Way back in early 2012, Cult of Mac reported on the way that genius artist rap singer Kanye West had raised the ire of Apple fans by claiming that he was “[picking] up where Steve Jobs left off.”

Since then he has repeated the statement on several occasions — telling the New York Times in 2013 that, “I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means,” and describing himself as, “undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump.”

A New Zealand father-and-son duo tracked down their stolen iPad using the device’s “Find My iPad” function.

After enjoying a meal in a restaurant in Nelson, New Zealand, Chris and Markham Phillips returned to the parking lot to find their car had been ransacked — and cash, glasses and an iPad were missing.

“As despair and disgust begin to kick in, we remember a newly installed tracking application on both the stolen iPad and the retained iPhone,” son Markham told a local reporter. “We fire up the app [and] the iPad icon pings onto the map.”

Joining the likes of iTunes Radio, Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio, Beats Music — the music subscription service spearheaded by Jimmy Iovine — launches today, 21 January.

Combining human curation from “the best music experts” to algorithm-based automated recommendations, Beats Music will offer access to over 20 million songs via unlimited, ad-free streaming for $9.99 a month on all the usual platforms — including iOS and Mac.

Mega Jump 2 is a game about jumping. Forever.

Most people were suitably impressed when the iPhone 5s allowed the Camera app to use a “slo-mo” recording mode — shooting video at a smooth 120fps, and producing some astonishing images in the process.

Now a new jailbreak tweak called Slo-mo Mod is letting the owners of older iOS devices manually configure a similar recording feature.

Remember the uber-popular Megaupload?

Kim Dotcom — the controversial entrepreneur behind that site — is soft-launching his long-discussed music service Baboom. Described as a cross between iTunes and Spotify, the site will feature a combination of paid content alongside content available free to those who install an ad substitution browser plugin.

Quantified Selfers in the Apple community have a new app to download, in the form of lifelogging app OptimizeMe, which recently launched in the App Store.

A single iOS app that tracks all of your daily activities, OptimizeMe allows users to log mood, stress level, health status, quality of sleep, weight, and a number of other variables. With the addition of activity tracker Moves installed, it also automatically tracks Running, Cycling, Walking, Steps, Calories and Location (Foursquare).

With season three having come to an end, fans of the BBC’s Sherlock series will be happy to hear that today marks the launch of a new game app — featuring new footage starring actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

Apple fans with a penchant for gaming have been able to use their PS3 controllers on the Mac for a while. A new jailbreak tweak now adds that functionality to iOS devices.

Called Controllers for All, the $1.99 jailbreak tweak is available in the Cydia Store, and adds iOS 7 gamepad compatibility to Sony’s PS3 DualShock 3 controller.

Having relaunched the iPhone 4 to help grow market share in India, new reports are now suggesting that Apple is also slashing the price of its 2012 iPad mini in an effort to make inroads in India’s mid-range tablet market.

It’s the weekend tomorrow, which for most people means that you can ignore the alarm when it goes off in the morning: hitting the snooze button on your iPhone and treating yourself to a few more hours of well-deserved rest and recuperation. Thanks to designers Distilunion, you can do it in style too — courtesy of their former Kickstarter iPhone alarm dock, the Snooze.

Here’s how it measures up.

Creepypasta meme Slender Man is back again — this time in an official sequel to 2012’s Slender Rising called, imaginatively enough, Slender Rising 2.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it pits you against the so-called Slender Man in four different horror movie-style locations, including the fan-favorite Mansion and Ghost Town. Your task is to rescue lost souls and pick up signs along the while, all while defending yourself with a shogun.

A new Apple Store has opened in Brisbane, Australia — representing the fourth to open in Queensland, and the largest in Australia’s Sunshine State.

Around 500 fans queued up for the grand opening ahead of time, with some camping out all night. The second person in line was Apple Store aficionado Gary Allen, who had traveled from California for the opening — which represents his 38th store opening.

News Republic — the iOS app which describes itself as the “definitive news app” — has received an upgrade, including several significant improvements.

Apple has been accused of censorship in the past when it has been a little heavy-handed (to say the least) about banning content in the App Store.

With that being said, few were upset to hear that Plastic Surgery for Barbie — a game which asks players of 9 years+ to perform liposuction on Barbie-styled characters to make them “slim and beautiful” — has been pulled from the App Store. Google has similarly pulled the app from its own Google Play store.

While Touch ID saves you the pain of writing in a passcode to unlock your iPhone, until now Mac users haven’t been afforded the same ease of use.

A new jailbreak feature is looking to change that, however, since it gives users the opportunity of using their iPhone 5s’ Touch ID feature to unlock their Mac computer.