VLC for iOS is making a return to the App Store after a licensing dispute got the popular video player pulled from the App Store over two years ago.
The visual appearance of the app has remained fairly consistent to the old version from 2010. The app was completely rewritten and is much faster thanks to modern output modules for audio and video, and offers multi-core decoding and support for any video files available in VLC media player for desktop operating systems.
Our iDevices have become an essential part of our digital lives. Don’t they deserve a little bit more protection when (and where) you can get it? Cult of Mac Deals has both the “when” and “where” covered with the latest offer: The Mini Utility Mac Bundle.
With this bundle, you’ll get 3 apps that will take the protection of your data on your iPhone, iPod, and iPad to a whole new level. For a limited time, you can get that protection for just $19.99 from Cult of Mac Deals!
If you asked most people what the average price of an iPhone app is, they’d probably say $0.99. But nope. As of April, the average price of an iPhone app is even lower. Shockingly low, even: a mere $0.19. And iPad’s a little higher, but not by much.
Consensus right now is that iPhone growth is slowing, but that didn’t stop Verizon by growing iPhone activations by 44 percent in the last quarter, beating estimates of activated iPhones by as much as half a million.
You just have to love the TurtleCell. First there’s the name, which conjures up images of hard-to-empty bowels. Then there’s the website, which manages to pack in plenty of Standard Infomercial Tropes: the cheesy, grinning model (usually either a family member or just the most photogenic person on the team, but never, ever a professional model), the overplayed example of the problem the product solves (in this case, an absurdly-tangled pair of earbuds) and even – yes, really – a sunglasses-wearing animal mascot in the product video.
It’s almost deliberately ridiculous. Oh, and the product is an iPhone case with built-in headphones.
I hate the beach: It’s full of dirty sand, sweaty half-naked men and polluted with the sound of bad radio stations. It’s exactly like your average building site in fact, and we don’t go and lie in the sun on those.
But in July in Barcelona, the beach is one of the few places you can go to cool down and feel a breeze. It’s also just about the most dangerous place to take your electronic gadgets.
And that’s where these Cloudcover weatherproof cases come in.
Apple’s CEO wants to sell more iPhones, but only in his stores. The iPhone is Apple’s cash cow with its high profit margins, and it creates a “halo effect” that causes customers to buy other Apple products.
Less than 20% of iPhones are currently sold in Apple Stores, and Cook won’t stand for it. Despite the fact that 80% of customers buy their iPhones elsewhere, 50% bring them into the Apple Store to get serviced. If Cook wants the sales/repairs ratio to improve, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.
New accessibility options about in iOS 7 beta, helping folks of all abilities access and use their iOS devices more effectively and efficiently. The Physical & Motor section of the accessibility options now allow folks with motor and other physical disabilities to use a switch for visual and auditory scanning options, emulate various gestures with assistive touch (introduced in iOS 6), adjust the Home click speed, and, as the headline above notes, set where the incoming calls are sent.
Want to have your incoming calls go automatically to a headset or speaker? It’s relatively easy in iOS 7 beta.
Potluck, a link-sharing service made by the same people behind Branch, announced today that its bringing its social network to the iPhone today with a brand new iOS app.
Rather than focusing on likes and retweets, Potluck is trying to position itself as a casual social network in hopes of drawing out the “lurkers” who usually sit back and read everyone else’s posts rather than engaging.
The central experience of Potluck is built around sharing and discussing links between a small number of friends, kind of like a more intimate version mix of Twitter and Digg. A desktop version has been available for the past two months, but the company says it sees Potluck as truly mobile experience and plans to release an Android app as well.
Here are the full release notes:
Some cases bring battery backup with them, others are waterproof. One or two allow you to charge your iPhone with energy from the sun.
The Snow Lizard SLXtreme iPhone 4 case does all three, and now it’s coming to the iPhone 5 and iPad.
David Koechner (Anchorman, The Office) rounded up some pals, including actor friend Harlan Williams (Half Baked, Dumb & Dumber) and released an eight-part short comedy about two beat cops, named Steady and Shakes, in 15 second clips via Instagram video.
Koechner plays the oblivious vocal partner, while Williams plays Shakes, the shaking, quiet one. They spend their time onscreen invading the wrong house, and almost dropping a baby they save from a burning building.
You can check out the full two minute short film on Koechner’s Instagram page, starting with the intro clip, here.
Apple and Samsung will meet in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit court next month as Apple steps up its bid to have a number of Samsung devices banned in the United States.
The Cupertino company is hoping to reverse the court’s decision not to remove then handsets from sale when they were found guilty of infringing Apple patents last August.
We’ve all heard stories about children who spends hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of dollars in the App Store when their parents have their backs turned. But that’s not the only place they can spend money on your iOS device.
Paul Stoute of Oregon learned that the hard way when his 14-month-old daughter purchased a vintage car on eBay using his iPhone.
Apple may be forced to reduce its iPhone 5S orders for the fourth quarter of 2013 due to supply constraints affecting the handset’s rumored fingerprint sensor and LCD driver chips. Both components were expected to enter production in late June or early July, but that’s now been pushed back into late July, according to industry sources.
Spendee looks like the kind of finance-tracking app I might actually use: It’s dead simple, great looking and works great with cash. It even has a nice flat design that’ll be at home in iOS 7 – although that icon will have to go — it’s 100% Forstallian.
AT&T announced today that it will rollout its own yearly upgrade program, in what seems to be a direct response to T-Mobile’s new ‘Jump’ program that was announced last week.
The new service, dubbed ‘AT&T Next,’ will begin nationwide on July 26th. Customers will be able to get a new smartphone or tablet every year without a down payment, activation fee, upgrade fee or financing fee. Sounds great, except just like with T-Mobile’s Jump plan, you have to pay a monthly fee for the perk for the first 20 months.
Here’s AT&T’s summary of Next:
IMDB released a new update for it’s iOS and Android apps today that includes a new feature that will allow iOS users to purchase movie tickets via the app. The free update also comes with a tie-in to the Amazon Mobile app that allows you to choose to buy a movie in IMDB and then order it through Amazon.
Ticket purchasing in the IMDB update is powered by Fandango. Once a user purchases a ticket it can be added to your Passbook and then scanned by theater staff for admittance just like in the Fandango iOS app. The app also has a new “Coming Soon” feature that lets you add movie release dates to your iOS calendar.
Here are the full release notes:
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has today claimed that Apple’s iPhone 5S will enter mass production this month ahead of its release in late September or early October. Misek also claims that Apple has already begun producing its low-cost iPhone, which he believes will cost $300-$400 without a carrier subsidy.
Rovio announced this morning that the next game in its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise will be Angry Birds Star Wars II. Following up on the success of the original Angry Birds Star Wars, the new game will be based off the events in Star Wars episodes I-III.
So far, details on the new game are fairly light, but we do know that it will feature new characters such as young Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, General Grievous and even Jar Jar Binks. Players will finally get to join the dark side and play as one of the villainous pigs too.
Rovio also announced that it’s creating a line of toys called Telepods that interact with the game and teleport characters into the map.
Here’s the trailer:
The Saidoka is both ingenious and utterly superfluous, both at the same time. It’s an iPhone dock designed to let your iPhone lay almost face-up, letting you charge it and use it when you’re sitting at your desk. It comes in 30-pin and Lightning flavors, and hooks up to a charger or computer via micro-USB.
You know what else keeps your iPhone say on your desk and facing upwards as it charges? Nothing? That is, you can put nothing under your iPhone and it’ll do the exact same thing. And neither will it cost you €50/$50.
The new A4000i electric scooter from Japan’s Terra Motors can hit 65km/h (40mph) and do 65km on a full charge (or “gallon”) of electricity. Used to travel 20km per day. The scooter will cost just $29 per year to run. That’s even less than my bike, which I fuel with a combination of delicious pizza and chocolate.
But the real reason I’m writing about the A4000i Is that it’s a giant, mobile iPhone dock.
Remember how simple Skitch used to be before Evernote bought it and ran it through its UI-mangling machine? So does Instapaper’s Marco Arment, which is why he made Bugshot, an app whose “sole purpose is dealing with screenshots better.”
The Korean studios Posh Craft and Realize have recently collaborated on designing a shell for the iPhone 5 called the Luna iPhone Skin.
The skin is actually made out of semi-flexible concrete, and each has crater patterns that are unique — no two are alike.
The skin will go on sale soon, according to the company, at a yet-undisclosed price.
Amazon is beating Apple in the eBooks racket by using Apple’s own pricing strategy for music.
But Apple can still clobber Amazon by out-Appling not the iTunes pricing strategy, but the Apple marketing strategy: Create a vastly better user experience for both content creators and content consumers! Oh, and focus on audio.
Here’s how.
This time on The CultCast: great apps go free for Apple’s 5th Appaversary; an updated Retina Macbook Pro is close at hand; iPad Mini COULD go retina; our favorite new iOS 7 beta 3 features; researchers know where you’ll take your iPhone next; Alex E. Heath loves Daughters; mini Kahney gets a birthday surprise; and guests hosts GWAR stop by! That last part’s a lie.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on this week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.
