Remember the Radius? It was an iPhone case so minimal that it was almost invisible when viewed from anywhere but the back, and weighed in at just 4.4 grams, a weight too light to even register on the scale of ounces [1]
The Corners 4 somehow manages to be even more minimal than the Radius, ditching that heavy x-shaped brace on the back and just putting a little round puck on each corner of the iPhone.
PRONGGGG! That’s the name of the company that makes the clevertastic PocketPlug, an iPhone case that comes with a built-in charger so you can just flip out its prongs and stick them into the nearest available wall socket.
Some of you poor folks live in a country where the police has been militarized to such an extent that it’ll shoot its citizens just for pointing a cellphone at them wrong. So just what would your public “servants” (paid by you via your taxes) make of the Urban Holster, a neat-looking belt-bag that looks like nothing more than a place to stow a pistol?
The time ’round on the Cult of Casts: it’s finally confirmed! New iPhones are coming September 10th… we’ll run through our expectations for the big day and offer a bold prediction of a big 5S spec bump. Then, Apple’s about to do something no tech company has ever done, and… seriously Samsung, a smart watch?
And stick around for our new segment, CultCast Second Hour, and catch our conversation with professional video editor and visual effects artist Mike Gaines as we talk the pros and cons Final Cut X; what software the editing pros use; the best cameras for indie projects; and all the Mac gear you need for a solid video product rig; plus so much more.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on all the finest Apple stories in the land. 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 unadulterated audio enjoyment begin. Show notes up next.
Apple is becoming a victim of its own success. It’s been several years since the company launched the iPad and revolutionized yet another product category, but we haven’t seen anything truly groundbreaking since then. Sure, we’ve had the iPad mini, the Retina MacBook Pro, and the awesome new iMac, but they’re all variations or improvements on existing products.
Now the world is clamoring for something completely new — something that’ll take off just like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Some reports suggest it will be the Apple “iTV,” the company first television set, which is said to be in development inside the company’s Cupertino headquarters. But it’s more likely that Apple’s immediate concern is with the “iWatch,” a smartwatch powered by iOS that will bring all kinds of crazy-cool technology to your wrist.
I had suspicions Apple might be working on its own watch when it redesigned the iPod nano last year. A lot of fans used the tiny nano as a watch thanks to third-party strap accessories, and it seemed like its form factor and design were changed for a reason — to make way for something new.
We’ve been reading iWatch rumors for the past few months, so it’s time to put them all together and establish what we think we know about the iWatch so far.
This article first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.
You may think a gold iPhone is the tackiest thing since Mr T’s chains, but Apple is actually fashion forward.
Cult of Mac asked EDITD, a leading fashion forecasting firm, whether the gold iPhone would be in step with what’s going on in the world, fashion-wise.
“Metallics, and gold in particular, are certainly a growing fashion trend,” noted EDITD’s Julia Fowler. “We’ve recorded an 88 percent increase in gold products over the last 3 months.”
Over the sweltering summer, gold went from being barely a glimmer with about 10,500 items stocked at stores like Gap, Target and ASOS, to 19,600 products.
Bring on the bling.
There are a bunch of video games out on iOS for kids, from educational games to adventure games and more. Sure, you can get reviews of these games by adults, sometimes even from parents of kids who use them.
We thought it’d be fun, though, to ask the kids themselves.
Welcome to Kid APProved, a series of videos in which we ask our own children what they think of video games on the App Store that they’re playing.
This week, it’s Disney’s first Infinity tie-in game, Disney Infinity: Action!.
From the department of “One Thing Well” comes KeyCam, an iPhone app which takes photos with a timer. Or a clap, which I guess makes that “Two Things Well,” but still.
Think your messages are private? Think again!
A Cult of Mac reader, asking to remain anonymous, sent in a tip about how he caught his girlfriend reading Messages on his iPhone.
Privacy is important to this fellow, but he suspected that his love was sneaking peeks at his text and iMessages.
So he took a couple of steps to catch her in the act.
Since it’s introduction last year, Apple’s iBooks Author app has only supported the creation of iBooks for iPad, but some new evidence on Apple’s website suggests iPhone support might be on its way soon.
Apple’s added ebook support for the iPad mini and previewed the arrival of iBooks for Mac WWDC, leaving the iPhone as the only major Apple device that can’t view ebooks created with Apple’s proprietary software. However, Serenity Caldwell at Macworld noticed some curious changes to Apple’s requirements message:
If you’re tired of running through temples, taking joyrides on jetpacks, or robot unicorn … attacking, developer Bravo has a guy you should meet.
He’s RunBot, star of the same-named, free-to-play, sprint-forever game out now for iOS devices. I’m not actually sure that his name is RunBot, now that I think about it, but that’s as good a name as any considering he’s a robot that runs. He also jumps, slides, falls, and flies, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
I’ve got a MacBook Air, an iPad, and an iPhone. There are certain apps – some that are made by Apple and some that aren’t that are only at their best when they sync across all three platforms. Here are some examples – and these are apps I use every single day:
But not all apps function like the above ones. Some won’t sync across all platforms (especially those outside of the Apple ecosystem) and keeping tabs on which ones sync what can become cumbersome.
That’s where SyncMate comes in – an app that Cult of Mac Deals currently has available for just $15.99.
With all the hubbub about new iPhones and new iPads coming, it wouldn’t be surprising if Apple slipped a small Apple TV update in there too. Although Apple dismisses it as their “hobby,” the Apple TV usually inherits the previous generation A-series chip when a new iPhone or iPad comes out. In this case, it’s the A6. In addition, Apple’s been building up steam when it comes to the Apple TV lately, releasing a number of entirely new channels in the last few months. It would be natural to follow that wth an update.
These are all good reasons to believe that Apple might try to slip in an update to their set-top box on September 10th, and lo and behold, a new report seemingly confirms that new Apple TVs are already making their way into the country.
Being a nerd, a pedant, and a Virgo, it’s painful to me to see terminology misused. Like when people say that a lens or photo has “a lot of depth-of-field” when they really mean a “shallow” depth-of-field, for instance.
I am destined to go through life constantly disappointed (and of course making my own dumb mistakes), but at least the depth-of-field problem has now been solved: there’s an app for that, and it’s called Lens•Lab.
You wait weeks for an invite to an Apple event, and then two come along at once. Shortly after the company invited the media to its September 10 shindig in Cupertino, it sent out invitations to a second event in Beijing on September 11. It’s the first time Apple has made an announcement in China, so it must be for something pretty special — but what?
Well, we have some ideas.
Following weeks of anticipation, Apple today issued invites for a September 10 press event that will finally see the grand unveiling of its latest iPhones. The Cupertino company is expected to show off both the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C, and announce a public release date for iOS 7.
We’ve been hearing all summer that the iPhone 5S will come with a fingerprint scanner, but it’s one of the few things that wasn’t being confirmed by the countless component leaks. That may have changed today, however. The flex cable pictured above could finally confirm that Apple’s next iPhone will have biometric security embedded within its home button.
Apple will begin delivering its new iPhones to retailers in the United Kingdom ahead of the handset’s launch on Friday, September 20, according to sources close to courier companies who have been speaking to The Telegraph. The Cupertino company has reportedly scheduled two “bookings” in anticipation of the early demand — but how many iPhones will be included in the shipments?
If you’ve ever yearned for an iPhone case modelled on the skin of Edward James Olmos in his Miami Vice period (and frankly, who hasn’t?) then I have excellent news: monCarbone will now sell you the Crater, a carbon-fiber case as full of holes as a cartoon cheese.
SEATTLE, PAX 2013 – We spoke a bit with indie studio, Gaijin Games, at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) this weekend in Seattle, about the upcoming release of Runner 2 to iOS (and Sony’s PS Vita). Runner2, aka Bit.Trip Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, is a side-scrolling platform game with heavy rhythm elements that’s already out on console and Steam for Mac.
The team wanted to publish Runner2 on iOS on its own, in contrast to the console versions, which were published by Aksys Games. The Bit.Trip series has been a critical and consumer success, selling well on a variety of platforms since it began with Bit.Trip Beat in 2009.
Cult of Mac reader James Broccoli asks:
@mistercharlie Can you write something about how you use IFTTT, gmail and Mailbox as a todo manager, as mentioned in that Nitro article?
— James Broccoli (@broccoliboy21) August 28, 2013
My answer was “Sure!”
. And if you don’t like this post, make sure to address all your complaints to Mr. Broccoli.
Until the Olloclip came along and changed iPhoneography forever, I got along with stick-on magnetic lenses for my iPad and iPhone. They work fine, as long as you don’t mind having to glue a metal washer around your iPhone’s lens, or Lining the lenses up to the iPhone camera’s own lens by eye, every time you either installed it or just knocked it.
The PhoGo case fixes this while adding a bunch of other neat iPhoneography features to your iPhone.
One of the main reasons I don’t use a case with my iPhone (except when testing for reviews) is that the iPhone 5 is so sleek and hot-looking that a case usually just fuglies everything up. Not so with Spigen’s Neo Hybrid, a case as handsome and slimline as the iPhone it protects.
Apple was found guilty in July of conspiring with publishers to fix the price of eBooks. As punishment, Apple must delete existing contracts with publishers and negotiate new ones, one at a time to avoid new conspiracy. The government is also pushing for Apple to let Amazon and others sell their books from Apple’s iPhones and iPads.
The whole story is framed like this: Apple and publishers are the bad guys, conspiring against victim Amazon to screw readers out of reasonably priced eBooks. So government, the hero, steps in and sets it right. Everyone lives happily every after.
It sounds like a bad fairy tale. Unfortunately, the true story that nobody is telling is actually something of a Shakespearean tragedy.
Here’s the true and tragic story of how Apple ended up helping Amazon become the Mother of All Monopolies. 
This time, on another fabulous episode of The CultCast: we imagine a Ballmer-less Microsoft; the 5S gets a smokin’ fast chip and a mysterious camera upgrade; the best ways to sell your old iPhone; why you should definitely wait to buy another Mac or iPad; plus special guest and Wired Editor Joe Brown uses toilets… from the future.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on all the finest Apple stories in the land. 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 pure enjoyment commence!
