Double Fine is putting several fantastic games on sale today, from Stacking and Brutal Legend on consoles to Iron Brigade on Steam.
But the best news of all is that the company has also dropped the price of one of the best games of all time, Psychonauts, to a mere five dollars. Well, $4.99 to be exact. How can this be?
In a letter to shareholders posted today on the Microsoft Investor website, Steve Ballmer, current CEO of Microsoft, said something surprising.
His comments in the annual letter suggest that Microsoft may take a page out of the Apple playbook and start building its own phones based on the upcoming Surface tablet PCs, similarly to the other hardware made by the Redmond-based tech giant, the XBox 360.
Apple’s much-maligned Maps app, released along with iOS 6, is an easy target, what with mixed up locations, cloud-obscured satellite images, and the infamous melting bridges. However, several developers have come forth to say that they had been warning Apple via reports on developer-only forums since the first beta came out at the beginning of June, 2012.
Some of these developers filed bug reports and sent e-mails to Apple employees as well, all about the poor performance of the upcoming Maps app in iOS 6.
“I posted at least one doomsayer rant after each (developer) beta, and I wasn’t alone,” one developer told CNET. “The mood amongst the developers seemed to be that the maps were so shockingly bad that reporting individual problems was futile. What was needed wasn’t so much an interface for reporting a single point as incorrect, but for selecting an entire region and saying ‘all of this — it’s wrong.'”
So, you know how to take a panorama photo with your new iPhone 5, right? Launch the Camera app, tap Options, then Panorama, and then point it at something suitably panoramic. An arrow appears on the left side of the iPhone 5’s screen, and you tap the shutter button, keeping the arrow centered between the two lines as you move your camera from left to right.
Guess what, though? You can do the very same thing from right to left. Revolutionary!
So, when you use OS X Dashboard widgets for a while, chances are you’ll download a few of them that might fit together into categories. In OS X Mountain Lion, Apple set the “Add More Widgets” screen to look a lot like iOS, as we showed you in a previous tip. The cool thing is that you can create iOS-Style folders in here, too, and add a bunch of apps to one slot, thereby organizing your Dashboard in a similar way to that of an iOS device screen.
Apple has published a Knowledge Base article that shows how to arrange the Apple TV app icons on the main screen. The update, 5.1, also added Shared Photo Streams, AirPlay Send audio, iTunes account switching, Trailer searching, new Screen Savers, support for Subtitles, more advanced Networking options, and the standard stability and performance enhancements.
Arranging the app icons is really very simple, and Apple’s post shows us how it’s done.
If you haven’t had the chance to play Pocket Planes on an iOS device, you really should. If, however, you live in a world where games cannot touch your iPhone or iPad (you poor, sad creature), then here’s some great news: Pocket Planes is coming to the Mac on Thursday.
Better yet, if you do own the game on your iOS device, you’ll be able to quit playing on your iPhone or iPad, and pick the game up on your Mac (or vice versa).
Quite a few resellers of Apple’s Mac Mini computer are currently out of stock of the diminutive desktop Mac, potentially signaling a potential hardware refresh. Amazon, MacConnection, Mac Mall, and J&R retailers are all reported to not have any more Mac minis of the 2.3 GHz or 2.5GHz persuasion, according to Apple Insider.
German Mac blog, Macerkopf, also noted today that Mini supplies are running out in its country, as well.
Could this be the front wave of a potential new hardware refresh of the Mini, perhaps to the new Ivy Bridge chipset?
Given Twitter’s recent history of slowly locking down its service for developers and third-party apps, you may be looking for a way around using a special app to send out a Tweet from your Mac that doesn’t include logging into your web browser, logging in to Twitter, then adding your message. Maybe you want to just send out a quick tweet about something, but want to avoid the hassle of launching Tweetbot or the official Twitter app. Either way, you can send out tweets from Notification Center in OS X Mountain Lion.
You need to enable it, first, though. Here’s how.
True, email is boring. However, it’s something we all use everyday to communicate for work, home, and pleasure. In iOS 6, Apple made a few changes to the way the Mail app works, tossing in new ways to sort, sign, and attach things to emails. Using the iOS 6 Mail app effectively takes a little bit of practice, a few tweaks, and the following five tips for using iOS 6 Mail the right way.
Kyle Buckner has been inspired by Steve Jobs his whole life, ultimately choosing a career in design due to the Apple founder’s influence.
Today, he announced a new tribute piece in honor of the first anniversary of Jobs’ passing: a specially designed desk, available in two colors from his website. The desks are a labor of love from Buckner that include a special Steve Jobs logo, designed specifically for this project. The result is a piece of furniture that’s both functional and beautiful, much like the product designs Buckner’s hero was a lifelong advocate for.
The desks are selling fro $999.99 apiece, with a portion of the proceeds going to The American Cancer Society. We took a few minutes to chat with Buckner via email.
Cult of Mac received an email today with some exciting news: Apple is extending the special offer of extra iCloud storage for all MobileMe customers who haven’t made the transition, yet. The extra upgrade was supposed to expire on September 30th of this year, but will now expire in 2013 on the same date.
EA has released a new, nine minute strategy and gameplay video to YouTube, with a voiceover by producer Stone Librande. Watch as he discusses his strategy for creating a casino city from the ground up. He spends time showing off the incredible graphics and fine-grain control the series is known for.
So, until iOS 6, in order to email photos, you had to drop into the Photos app, open one photo at a time, and tap the Share via email button. You can still do this, or you can tap the Edit button in Photos and share multiple photos to email or other services like Facebook or Twitter.
In addition, however, you can insert pictures into an email right inside of Mail app, without ever having to leave the app to get your images, which is much more Mac-like, to be honest. I mean, if you’re sending an email, you want to be able to add photos right there. Right? Right.
Here’s how to do just that.
Steve Jobs has changed the world four times, by my reckoning. One year after his death, is the world different? What is his legacy? Is it the company that he started, journeyed outward from in disgrace, and ultimately returned to in triumph? How about the devices he had an enthusiastic hand in bringing to market? The business of music and film? What is the world now that it would not have been without Steve Jobs?
It’s all of those things, of course. Jobs’ legacy is not something we can distill into a simple slogan or tagline. Steve Jobs worked for a world in which the design, manufacture, and marketing of consumer electronics enhances our lives in a very human way.
Let me explain.
So, the wacky little app-thingy that we all wondered about in iOS 6, Passbook, seems like it’s starting to grow up a bit. Now, when you tap the App Store button in the Passbook App, the new “Apps for Passbook” section of the iTunes App Store, only available via your iPhone running iOS, has quite a few new apps available.
The Apple store is down on Apple’s website, which typically happens when a new product is about to come online and be sold to the public. With the iPad Mini all but confirmed to be released at a separate event, and the iPhone 5 a semi-distant last-week memory, chances are this is a simple update or change. Maybe a simple speed bump for one of the Mac computers? The iMac, perhaps?
Of course, the fan boy in me really wants it to be something super cool, so I’m asking you all here to jump in with your wildest fantasy of why the Apple store is down. Ready? Go!
The Hipstamatic folks sent us word that their new 260 update is here, with some rad new features, like Multiple Exposures, Rock the Vote free films, a new switch for the flash, and fully iOS 6 and iPhone 5 capabilities – no more letterboxing.
You can now create double exposure (or triple or quadruple) to spice up your photographic styles. It’s available as a $0.99 in-app purchase, and should let you play around with lens, film, and flash combinations to your heart’s content.
Coffee Stain Studios announced a new update for its 3D tower-defense game, available for Mac on Steam for $9.99. The new update is named “Still Alive,” and includes two new towers and a new weapon. A new map pack is available, as well, cleverly named “Sanctum – Map Pack 2.” This adds three new levels, each new environment containing its own set of challenges and strategies for winning.
Sanctum takes the standard tower defense game and brings you into the action with a zoomable 3D perspective. You must place towers of differing power types along the route of aliens intending to destroy your space ship, upgrading them as the waves of enemy creeps grow more voluminous and stronger with each successive defeat.
I like to be notified when email comes in, but I sure do get a lot of email. Prior to iOS 6, I was relegated to just dealing with it, and setting the type of notification–Badges, Banners, and Sounds–for eMail in general. It got a bit tedious, to say the least, with the four main accounts I check on my iPhone.
You know now that you can set up a different signature for each email account you check on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 6. But did you know you could also set up a different Notification style for each account, as well?
Here’s how.
You’ve used Quick Look a lot, right? I know I have. I’ve use it a ton to browse through bunches of images on my Desktop when trying to decide which Screenshot I want to put at the top of these OS X tips.
But there’s much more you can do with multiple files and Quick Look, including a sweet index view that I just found out about myself. Follow along at home, and I’ll show you how.
Starbucks just updated its iOS app to work with iOS 6 and Passbook, Apple’s new virtual wallet app. The update lets users store virtual card info in both the Starbucks app as well as Passbook, which will allow them to access the card much more easily, in the iPhone lock screen itself.
The update also includes an easier sign up process for Starbucks’ Rewards system, allowing for new accounts to be created within the app, as well as multiple bug fixes, data optimization, and performance improvements.
The retro-wacky Bit.Trip series, originally published on the WiiWare downloadable game service for Nintendo’s Wii console, has started showing up on Steam. The second game in a six-game series, Bit.Trip Core serves up some psychedelic visuals married to a fantastic chiptune soundtrack, which is available if you purchase the $12 version of the game.
The best part? Bit.Trip Core, like the other three Steam-available games from the Bit.Trip series, is available for the Mac.
According to a new report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, one in four adults in the United States owns a tablet of some kind. Two thirds of those adults have purchased them in the last year, according to the study, which was reported by The Economist. Further, the data doesn’t even include the new Google Nexus tablet, nor the new Kindle Fire HD from Amazon.
Is iPad in trouble? Is this a new era for Apple, one in which it must play catch up? The numbers of units do seem to tell that story.
I’m not buying it, though.
Cult of Mac reader, Scott, asks this week:
“I would like to find out how to create a hyperlink in my Sig using my iPad. Example: Find me on twitter ( with twitter being a hyperlink taking them to my home page.”
I’ve shown you how to use Emoji in your signature, taking advantage of the rich text abilities of iOS 5 and up, but iOS 6 adds HTML support for signatures. Now you can put any rendered HTML into your signature on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Here’s how.