Rob LeFebvre - page 21

We’ve all done it before: we head to the family reunion, the wedding, the kid’s birthday party and we just shoot everything. We have no plan except that we think we’ll have time later to edit it down to something interesting.

Unfortunately, that just leads to a bloated iPhone with too many unnecessary video files. Plus, you know you’re never going to get around to sitting down and looking through all that footage again. Ugh.

With a good plan, however, and a firm grasp of one simple storytelling technique, you’ll avoid this problem and create some amazing videos without a whole lot of extra work.

Here’s how.

If you’ve ever taken a ride on an unfamiliar city’s subway or transit system, you know how confusing it can be to know which specific exit to use to find the right above ground location you need to get to where you’re going.

In the upcoming iOS 9, Apple Maps aims to help you out with a subtle yet extremely useful feature: it will tell you which exit to take when you’re using the Transit option, also new to iOS 9.

Another week flying by here at Cult of Mac headquarters, and we’ve got a ton of great stories to share with you in the latest issue of Cult of Mac Magazine.

Taylor Swift made waves with her calling out the Cupertino company’s plans to not pay artists for music streamed during upcoming Apple Music free trial period, and we’ve got all the details within. Plus, we take a look at Amazon’s new home hub, the Echo, spend some time trawling the patent office for new Apple gear coming our way, and take a quick tour of the latest iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan betas for developers.

All that and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Be sure to download and subscribe to check it all out on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

The annual race car festival at Goodwood is underway this year, with 100,000 attendees all clamoring to see the hot rods and race cars speed their way to the top of the uphill course.

Avowed gear-head Jony Ive travels to the South of England each year to see the festtival; chances are he’s there now ogling the sweet lines of a fancy race car or taking in some ideas for the rumored Apple car.

Check out some of the cool rides from this year’s festival below.

Heroes Reborn reboots the 2006 NBC cult-hit Heroes with a whole new cast of characters, and some familiar faces, too.

While the original series ended up being awful after the fantastic first season, both due to the 2007/2008 writers’ strike and series creator Tim Kring’s distraction over the latter couple of seasons.

The big draw of that first season was ordinary people discovering their extraordinary powers, set in a comic-book inspired world just brimming with possibility. You really cared for these characters as they stumbled and fell trying to become heroes in the face of a world — and a super-villain, Sylar, masterfully played by not-yet-a-superstar Zachary Quinto.

Here’s hoping the new reboot will have original creator Kring working at the top of his form again; the new trailer (below) has me pretty excited that it’s true.

Post-apocalyptic free-to-play iOS game Fallout Shelter is proving that engaging gameplay and treating your players like valued customers pays of huge dividends.

Developer Bethesda today revealed that the game, only just released, has pushed aside all other takers in the App Store, becoming the top downloaded game in 48 countries, and the top downloaded app (including games) in 25 more.

Looks like a fun, quality game that doesn’t trick you into buying in-app purchases can be successful after all.

So you want to take video with your iPhone, because you realize that it’s a fantastic camera with some great features like slo-mo and time-lapse, and you also know that the best camera for any video or photo shoot is often the one you have with you.

If you’re like me, though, chances are you’re a bit shaky-handed. Or you have big mitts that tend to cover your whole iPhone, and they constantly end up hitting the Sleep button when you don’t want them to.

In short, shooting video with any sort of professionalism or polish is much more easily accomplished with a camera you can grip. That’s where ShoulderPod S1 Pro iPhone Grip comes in.

Your iPhone is set up as a still camera first and foremost, so it tends to automatically focus and expose your images. This is fantastic when you need a quick snapshot, but when you’re taking video, the constant re-focusing and exposure adjustment just makes everything look blurry and amateur.

You can tap the screen in either video or photo modes to get a quick adjustment, but the minute you or or subject moves, all bets are off. Your best chance, then, at keeping your iPhone videos blur-free is to lock the focus and exposure.

Here’s how.

Adobe Systems Inc. has yet another patch for you to download and install to fix yet another critical security hole in its ubiquitous Flash Player browser plugin.

Hackers are already onto the exploit, so if you use Adobe Flash Player, you really need to download and apply the patch.

Better yet, though: just stop using Flash Player.

Every week, we pull together all the great stuff from the past week of Cult of Mac’s coverage of Apple, culture and technology news into a slick Newsstand magazine.

This week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, then, has all the details we can share about the upcoming iPhone 6s (with more to come in the months to follow, for sure), a few more Apple Watch details, a review of an amazing iPhone camera add on, a profile of the best Apple analyst around, and a look at the oddest little waterproof Bluetooth speaker you ever did see.

All of this and much, much more. Check it out.

Gamers aren’t turning to magazines — or even websites — as much as they used to. These days, you’re more likely to find them on YouTube or Twitch to watch Let’s Play videos, Minecraft machinima, or streaming League of Legends matches. It’s a bold new world, and YouTube wants to capture a little more of the video gaming market with its new YouTube Gaming site, which will also have its very own app for mobile devices and gamers on the go.

Everything YouTube gaming related will show up in this new space; now when you search for “Call” on YouTube Gaming, you can be sure that you’ll get Call of Duty videos only, and not “Call Me Maybe” music videos (as if that’s a bad thing).

Now that Apple’s annual developer conference is over, we’ve got the skinny on all the news coming out of the WWDC this year. From a thorough wrap-up of the keynote to in-depth looks at iOS 9, OS X El Capitan, the new watchOS 2, and the exciting Apple Music, we’re here to fill your weekly digital magazine to overflowing.

Get Cult of Mac Magazine now, and soak in Cult of Mac’s smart, informed, and sometimes a little snarky take on all the info from WWDC 2015.

“Why did I want to direct the WWDC opening number?” asks comedian Bill Hader in the video that opened Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday morning. “Good question. You know, I think I’ve always been attracted to risk, you know?”

Then the production assistant comes to get Hader’s character, “David LeGary,” from his dressing room, and we find out that the pretentious “genius” has just been talking to himself. What follows is an over-the-top rehearsal of a Hollywood-like awards show, full of funny cameos and goofy dialogue. Check it out.

Mobile games — especially those with a multiplayer component — are making more money than traditional handheld games, says a new report by mobile analytics agency, App Annie. The company partnered with the International Data Corporation to show the growth in mobile gaming over the past year, and how it’s skews toward mobile and multiplayer gaming.

Poor console makers; they hardly knew what hit them. While they still have life in them, and the games tend to be deeper and of a higher quality, it seems as if most gamers would rather just play on the device they already have with them; their iPhone or iPad.

Virtual reality had its coming out party Thursday morning with a live-stream presentation from the Oculus Rift team. VR is coming ever closer to becoming a true platform, with games that you can stream from Xbox and PC as well as those that will run directly on the Rift itself.

VR is a fledgeling technology with its share of quirks, even though it’s been a topic in computer science and gaming circles for decades. Just like Star Trek’s holodeck, we’ve all wanted to immerse ourselves in our gaming and fantasy environments and VR holds that promise. With early reports of nausea and other motion issues, the newly-improved devices have a lot to make up for.

The Oculus team is hard at work at doing just that, with improvements to both the hardware and software to ensure a fun, comfortable experience for most gamers.

Uber, the disruptive (and controversial) ride-sharing service, has a real problem. If you want to corner the market on the backs of a global workforce of what are essentially freelancers, how do you ensure that they all know how to use your system? And, more importantly, how do you replenish your supply of willing Uber drivers.

The San Fransisco company thinks that a video game may be the answer. Called UberDrive, it will be available on the App Store for anyone who wants to take a virtual trip as an Uber driver.

“UberDRIVE is a compelling representation of what it’s like to be an Uber driver-partner on the platform,” said Mike Truong, a senior product manager at Uber, in a statement. “Through the course of playing the game you can get a sense of how much money you can make using your own car and driving on your own time. With the sign-up flow embedded directly into the game it makes it really easy to start the sign-up and screening process right then and there.”

Apple Watch owners have to rely on Siri more than iPhone users do, what with the lack of the keyboard and such. However, Siri’s got some funny easter eggs built right in, and it’s fun to try and figure them out.

Use your Apple Watch to ask Siri to show you her dance moves and she’ll bust out some lines that are funny, sure but end up sounding more like dad jokes, to be honest.

This Red Bull-sponsored film of Tyler Fernengel, an up and coming BMX star, shredding through the creepy post-apocalyptic remains of Detroit’s Silverdome stadium is both amazing to watch and poignant at the same time.

The stadium represents with a gravelly-voiced narration, as well.

“I remember it like yesterday,” it says. “The smell of fresh paint. The stands overflowing; a colosseum for the modern age. Forty years ago, I stood for Detroit.”

Check it out below.

“You’ve got a secret,” says Naomie Harris’ Miss Moneypenny in the new TV spot for upcoming Bond film SPECTRE. “Something you can’t tell anyone because you don’t trust anyone.”

Daniel Craig is back in a new Bond film, this one named after the fictional spy syndicate that figured heavily in the Ian Fleming novels and debuted in the film Dr. No in 1962.

Here’s a full trailer full of the things you’ve come to associate with James Bond, including explosions, intrigue, and plenty of women. Bond is such a slut, right?

If you’ve got an Apple developer account and a Mac, you might want to instal the latest OS X 10.11, better known as El Capitan, onto your machine right now.

Until it’s out of beta, though, you might want to consider installing it on a second partition of your Macintosh, in case things get wonky. It is a beta, after all, and you should never rely on a beta for a mission-critical device.

If you’re un-daunted still, here’s how to install El Capitan safely onto another partition on your Mac to try it out without nuking your current install of Yosemite.

Jonathan Mann is the Song a Day creator who’s (so far) written and recorded 2,350 songs (including this one) for his YouTube channel. He’s an Apple fan, of course, and many of his songs have to do with the Cupertino-based tech company.

Mann set up his Macbook and guitar across the street from the Moscone Center and recorded this latest tune live on the sidewalk, and it’s all about the Monday’s developer keynote.

“Not one but (count ’em) two,” he sings, “women up on the stage. It’s a start, and it’s about time ’cause these white dad jokes they’re starting to fade.”

Check it out.

Popcorn Time is an open source app for Mac that allows users to stream movies from bit torrent sites that have ripped movies on them.

The tech made a huge splash, but is now sadly defunct, even while its creators still proclaim that the technology is legal.

However, some other folks thought the technology was perfect to help us all with another internet activity that a whole bunch of us still enjoy: porn.

Porn Time, based on the same code as Popcorn Time, is now available for Mac, Windows and Linux, so grab a towel and check it out.

Based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name, The Martian will chronicle astronaut Mark Watney’s incredibly plausible scientific survival on the surface of Mars for four years in a habitat designed for 30 days.

With Matt Damon in the title role, an all-star cast and Ridley Scott in the director’s chair, The Martian is shaping up to be the one film science nerds must see this summer.

The official trailer came out Monday and you’re going to want to see it right now. Too bad you’ll have to wait until the end of November.

If you’re an early adopter of Apple Watch as well as a registered Apple developer, you can get the new watchOS 2 on your wrist right now. It takes a bit of effort, including getting into your copy of Xcode, but it seems like that might be worth it for those of us who like to get all the new stuff right away, as well as the folks that are making tomorrow’s apps for today’s it device.

Here’s how you get your Apple Watch beta set up.

If you’re curious about the new changes coming to iOS 9 and you’ve got an Apple Developer account, you can head over and get the latest operating system for Apple’s mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) from the developer website.

You’ll need to register your iPhone or iPad with the Developer website, first, then download the new iOS 9 beta and install it. Here’s the breakdown of getting iOS 9 onto your iPhone or iPad, which is required if you want to try and install watchOS 2 beta for your Apple Watch.