Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you're doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
A German man tired of relying on public services to ferry him around in his wheelchair has developed a crowdsourced iPhone app with info on access to public places.
Though Raul Krauthausen doesn’t lament the services available for the physically handicapped in Germany – special taxis and grocery delivery, etc. – he wanted more flexibility.
“Sometimes I feel I’m treated like a child who isn’t allowed to decide specific things by myself,” said the 30-year-old who suffers from a genetic disorder that makes his bones brittle. “I want to remain flexible and not be dependent on when a driving service has time to pick me up.”
It sounds like every Apple fan’s dream: you start a new job and while you’re riffling through the desk they’ve assigned you, you come across a dusty little Apple branded artifact…
“Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration” has released a storm of controversy – and free publicity – for the game devs hope will be approved for iTunes by March.
If you think your iPhone pics are museum quality, you may have the chance to see them hanging up in an art exhibit.
The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California is gearing up for an exhibit called “Pixels: The Art of iPhone Photography” from March 31 to April 30, 2011.
You have until February 27 to submit your best pics.
The next time you buy a couch, a car or a caffelatte, you can tell management what you think of the service with a stroke of your iPhone.
The Tello app lets you give a quick thumbs up or thumbs down and add comments on the fly as well as share your service woes or whoahs via Twitter and Facebook.
It runs on the iPhone, iPad and there’s a mobile version, too. Tello’s interface is clean, simple and has a database of 14 million businesses and if it can’t find your bodega, you can easily add it.
A more efficient, less costly government sounds like a pretty good idea no matter where you sit on the political spectrum.
Whether devices like iPads – small, portable devices that allow lawmakers to read lengthy documents without printing them out – are a good way to do that has been open to debate.
Cult of Mac talked to a city council member in Ridgecrest, California who has been bringing his own device to work to speed things up.
The profile image on Twitter for Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim shows him wearing a Pharoah’s crown, typing away on a Mac laptop. Ghonim, a Google marketing exec in Cairo, was released after 12 days in custody by authorities for a Facebook pageFacebook Page about the death of everyman activist Khalid Said that catalyzed protests.
I got to talk to a researcher this week about social media in the Arab world – and how the services many of us use to keep in touch with far-flung old flames and cousins serve as portable microblogging and news distribution tools in places where most media is state-run or party-funded.
We’ll try to catch up to Ghonim after the euphoria dies down to ask him what role Apple devices play in these historic events.
UPDATE: we corrected the FB page thanks to reader ademsemir who says that iPhones played a big part in recent events.
If you need a good laugh as much as you need a roll in the hay, a new app that promises to synch music to the intensity of your lovemaking may be just the thing.
The Matt Berry Sexytime Soundtrack App works using the iPhone’s accelerometer – put your phone on your bed and it should regulate the music to your amorous ministrations. So the harder you go at it, the raunchier the music gets.
Just don’t expect to keep a straight face: you’ll be goaded and chided by the voice of Matt Berry, who interjects things like: “You’ll probably get breakfast for this.”
Carling's rescued iPad. He joked that he might test it for fingerprints.
Former England Rugby captain Will Carling left his iPad on a train (doh!) but recovered it using the Find My iPhone App.
When Carling logged on to his laptop at home, he thought some good samaritan had turned in the device to the station’s lost and found, since the location dot was beeping nearby. He drove back to the area only to find the GPS chip led him to an apartment building.
“There was no answer, so I wrote 18 notes and put them through the doors,” he said. “Part of me thought, what if they take it the wrong way? But I just thought, to hell with it, I want my iPad back.”
If you’re the kind of person who believes that “luxury Range Rover” should be an oxymoron, you’re probably not going to like the latest vehicle unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.
Among the luxe touches that come standard with the Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate Edition are two iPads for the rear passenger seats.
This clearly isn’t designed for toting around the kiddies, what with the “superyacht-inspired teak loadspace floor,” “semi-aniline leather seating” and a rear console which features a machined aluminium laptop table and drinks chiller.
All of these tony touches, however, “suggest its suitability as a chauffeur vehicle.” Which is always good to know.
Range Rover did not yet release the sticker price for the model, which comes with a choice of LR-TDV8 or LR-V8 Supercharged engines.
Police are hoping shoppers will help identify a pair of women who snatched an iPad from a cart in a parking lot, put it in their car for safekeeping and returned to the store.
The scene of the crime was a Walmart parking lot in Blythewood, North Carolina. The victim was unloading her purchases into her car, with the iPad perched in the front basket, at 8:30 pm. She turned around and the magical device had disappeared.
Police believe a pair of women snagged it, put it in their own car, then went into the store. Video surveillance shows two heavy-set women dressed in black who don’t look to be in any hurry walking through the entrance with a cart.
It’s another instance that shows how the lightweight and portability of the iPad can sometimes work against owners who want to hold on to them. And a good reminder to install the Find My iPhone app.
Congressman Markey just wrote a letter to the FTC, asking them to investigate apps where “Smurfs and snowflakes and zoos (act) as online ATMs pulling money from the pockets of unsuspecting parents.”
So: whose responsibility is it?
Apple, who approves the games in the store and takes a 30% cut from the sales — at least those sales where parents don’t complain and get a refund?
Parents, who aren’t vigilant enough about disabling in-app purchases — and checking every time the tot gets their hands on an iDevice to play to make sure that it is, in fact, disabled?
Game devs who created a mechanism for that has been described as “credit card bait?”
Let us know why you think Apple should or should not allow these apps in the comments.
A US congressman wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting more information about possible consumer protection issues related to “in-app” purchases — such as kiddy game “Smurf’s Village” we’ve been talking about for months.
Spurred on by a Washington Post article (what, he doesn’t religiously read Cult of Mac?) Congressman Edward J. Markey, a senior member and former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, fired off a few thoughts on the games that target young children.
An excerpt from Markey’s letter:
“I am disturbed by news that in-app purchases may be taking advantage of children’s lack of understanding when it comes to money and what it means to ‘buy’ an imaginary game piece on the Web. Companies shouldn’t be able to use Smurfs and snowflakes and zoos as online ATMs pulling money from the pockets of unsuspecting parents. The use of mobile apps will continue to escalate, which is why it is critical that more is done now to examine these practices. I will continue to closely monitor this issue and look forward to the FTC’s response.”
Developers of an iPhone game called “Smuggle Truck” are already drawing fire – and free publicity – for a game that has not yet been approved by Apple.
The full title of the game from Boston company Owlchemy Labs is “Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration.”
In it, players navigate through what looks like the U.S.-Mexican border. As the truck drives over cliffs, mountains and dead animals, immigrants fall off the truck bed. Scores are calculated by the number of immigrants helped into the U.S.
It’s a rough world when it comes to couples who mix computer choices: one partner spends a lot of time trying to “convert” the other, most of the time unsuccessfully.
Mostly Mac users, who just can’t let this PC-using habit alone: a micro-survey found that 80% of Mac fans tried to convince their significant other to switch, but only 60% successfully “converted” them.
These are the water-cooler takeaways from a poll about Macs and PC couples, timed of course for that most noxious of holidays, St. Valentine’s Day. Poll organizers Parallels, who ran the survey to promote their solution for running Windows applications on Macs, said they had some 30 respondents.
The reactions poll respondents had when discovering their potential partners were PCs are pretty funny – you could almost insert owning a PC with some other undesirable habit (smoking?)
“I knew he could be changed.”
“I feared there may be more ‘tech support’ than ‘love support’ desired.”
We had a couple of questions for each other having met on-line on our first brunch date. She said she was currently a Windows users, but she had used a Mac in college for Desktop Publishing, there was hope…”
What do you think – does this bear out your PC/Mac relationship experience? “
Or perhaps this digital divide is a valid reason to sign up for Apple-dating service Cupidtino, which only matches up people who love Macs with other Mac lovers.
There’s a flurry of conflicting reports today on when the next iPad will debut – we have heard that the next iteration of the magical device will be unveiled in March or June at the WWDC.
Make your guess in the comments, along with the reason you think why Apple would choose that date.
Five correct answers, randomly chosen (though we admit some bias for the funny ones), will win promo codes for cool iPhone or iPad apps.
The fake iDevices confiscated in Los Angeles @Courtesy LA Port Police Authority.
Port police in Los Angeles busted a counterfeit iDevice operation with a warehouse full of fakes with an estimated market value of $10 million.
“This was a well-funded operation, and the counterfeits looked very authentic,” said Ron Boyd, chief of the approximately 200-member L.A. Port Police force, adding that a buyer might not have noticed anything awry until he or she got home and tried to hook up with iTunes.
Police believe the fakes were shipped in from China as replacement parts then reassembled them. The two brothers arrested and charged with felony counts for the sale of counterfeit goods in charge of the operation may have thought they could fly under the radar with older-model fakes, still in demand by some consumers. (Personal aside: I still have both of those iPod Nano models and am clinging to them because of the storage, battery life and light weight.)
Jonathan Kopp is the lead digital and social media strategist for PR mega-firm Ketchum worldwide.
Kopp is also a Mac devotee – never far from his iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro and Apple TV – so we thought he’d be the perfect person to ask where paid iPad content is headed.
Apple’s new subscription model, unveiled with The Daily and expected to reach other iPad magazines soon, has a price point of $0.99 per week, $40 a year, with much the same mechanisms (automatic renewal, no refunds) of analog subscriptions. Apple, which gets a 30% cut from the subs, will also enforce its rule of apps in iTunes selling content via in-app purchase.
Kopp, who came to Ketchum after working on the Obama 2008 National Media Team and the Clinton White House, doesn’t think most people want to pay for those subscriptions. (Judging from the results in our reader poll, you think so, too. )
His take: Apple’s iPad subscription model is basically another Newton and bound to flop.
Ken Segall, the advertising guru who named the iMac and coined the “Think Different” slogan, wants to bust what he calls the “last myth about Macs:” security.
Segall takes to task all the usual arguments – Macs are only secure because there aren’t that many of them and that Macs are actually more vulnerable, thanks to the known vulnerabilities.
With the launch of The Daily yesterday, Apple revealed a new subscription model for iPad publications.
You can currently check out The Daily for free for two weeks, then subscriptions run $0.99 per week or $40 a year. This model is currently only available for that publication, but is expected to be expanded soon.
The next time you download on iTunes, you’ll be asked to agree with the updated terms of service about in-app subscriptions.
The 347-word TOS specifies that subs are non-refundable, automatically renew and may hand over your personal details to publishers – which, to me at least, sounds like the same kind of hassle faced with analog magazine subscriptions.
Are you pleased that Apple has created a new, uniform model for subscriptions or are you going to stick to paper?
The arrests of nearly 30 people are expected to be announced today in a New York-based cybercrime ring targeting Apple stores.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. will name names Wednesday of the dirty two-plus-dozen who forged credit card numbers to buy goods from Apple stores across the country.
The allegations involve a total of 27 people and roughly $1 million in ill-gotten gains from Apple stores across the country from New York to Los Angeles to Wauwatosa, Wis.
The indictment lists purchases in Apple stores including Las Vegas, Atlanta, Indianapolis and St. Louis, and smaller communities such as Altamonte Springs, Fla., and Stamford, Conn.
Group members of the group occasionally ran up sizeable tabs – more than $3,000 worth of products in one go — but other transactions were as small as a $53.45 tab for a laptop case, according to the indictment.
Accused ringleader Shaheed Bilal had thousands of stolen credit card numbers stored in e-mails and bragged on Twitter about using credit cards at restaurants, prosecutors said at his arraignment Tuesday.
And you thought getting busted for checking out porn at work was bad: an Italian member of parliament was snapped checking out prostitutes on his iPad during a session.
Except that in the Viagra-fueled Italian government that’s pretty much business as usual. Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia, 67, is a member of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s PDL party, who perhaps thought checking out what to do after work on the iPad’s glossy 9.7-inch screen was no big deal.
The tablet computer – if he’d had a laptop he could’ve adjusted the screen down – was probably what got him busted by a fellow politician with a phone cam.
Everyone seemed excited when the iPhone 4 launched with video chat app FaceTime. But aside from the burgeoning iPhone porn chat industry, is anyone actually using it?
Jamey Heary over at Network World wonders. And so do I.
While I love the idea of Jetson-like communications devices, video chatting never seemed that useful to me, even as an expat, to make it something I used regularly – as per a piece I did for Wired back in 2005 writing about my video-call enabled Nokia smartphone.
San Franciscans like to share – heck, there are three startups here that will let you borrow your neighbor’s car for a small fee – so it seems like a great place to launch an app that lets you rent someone’s parking space.
Also, finding parking in San Francisco sucks. Enter iPhone app Park Circa, which lets you rent out your parking space to fellow drivers for a low rate or snag a spot on the fly without having to worry about having change for parking meters.
The app, in beta for iPhone and soon to come to Android and Blackberry phones, is free to download on iTunes.
