China Times is reporting this morning that Apple is going to save costs on a budget iPhone for emerging markets by using a 28nm Snapdragon SoC which has Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G all on the same chip, but wouldn’t support LTE.
Interesting theory, but it’s not going to happen.
This week on The CultCast—finally—it’s time to talk iPhone 5S and iPad 5! We’ll tell you why April and August might be bringing you the tasty new iDevices, and if they’ll be drastically different than the models we’ve already got.
Then, is Apple is a innovation lull? Ex-Apple CEO John Scully thinks so. We’ll tell you what we think is really going on.
Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Show notes up next!
John C Dvorak, Leo Laporte, and a couple of other folks involved in This Week in Tech (TwiT) had a meeting together at the Apple campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino this past Monday, and they ended up having an informal battle of the navigation apps in the three cars they were each driving. TWiT CEO Lisa Kentzell and marketing guy Glenn Rubenstein were in one car, using Apple Maps, while Laporte was using Waze, Dvorak using Google Maps.
Dvorak wrote the story up over at PC Magazine, and claims that Apple Maps got the TWiT folks to the Apple campus faster than either Waze, which came in dead last, or Google Maps. We can count on this being the truth of their experience, as anyone of Dvorak’s stature might have a hard time admitting that he lost a race.
The interface designer behind the Auxo app-switcher concept (@Sentry_NC) has come up with another fantastic idea, this time aiming his attention at the Lock Screen of iOS. In this new concept, iPhone and iPad users would be able to swipe over from the right hand side of their device screen, revealing a host of settings that typically require launching the Settings app for.
I sure hope Apple implements something similar.
Frayed charging cables are nasty, and they can shock you. Over the last couple days, there has been a lot of discussion on Reddit about the best solutions to keep Apple’s new Lightning cables from fraying.
Some people go to some crazy lengths to keep their cable’s in tip-top shape. One guy coils the end of his cables with a paperclip. Another redditor actually dips his Lightning cable in Plasti Dip. But my_clock_is_wrong has the best solution of all, grip the cable at the proper spots. It’s fool proof.
Source: Reddit
It’s always nice to be able to split the cost of something with a group of friends, except when it comes time to actually pay up. There’s always one or two people that suck at paying on time, but GroupMe’s got a great new feature for the app to help out with that.
GroupMe just released version 4.1 of their iOS that adds a couple of great new features, including the ability to split a bill with friends.
Prepare to riot. Facebook — the social network you obviously spend every single second of every single day upon — is about to change their Newsfeed… and it’ll never be the same again! Up is down! Left is right! Zig is zag! Ahhhhhhh!
Just kidding. It’s not that bad, although those who fear change won’t be fond. The new design is “mobile-inspired” and is basically aimed at making it easier for you to filter the kinds of things your friends are sharing with you, and making them look better and less cluttered when you do.
Even though Apple and Google hate each other now days, that hasn’t stopped Google from making some really great apps for the iPhone. Google’s latest creation just hit the App Store today and it’s focused on local discovery.
Field Trip has previously been an Android-only app, but Google is bringing it to the iPhone today for free. The app is kind of like Google Now. It runs in the background and then automatically alerts you of interesting information in your area based on location data.
Intel and Apple, teaming up to make A-series chips for the iPhone and iPad? That’s what the rumors are saying, with a recent Reuters report going so far as to claim that executives from both companies have actually met to discuss the possibility of the x86 maker pumping out ARM chips custom designed by Apple!
“Intel Once Again Rumored To Be Working On iOS Device Chips With Apple,” read our headline this morning. But would Intel really cash in on its x86 heritage to make ARM chips? And if Apple did switch, would that really be a win for everyone?
The short answer? Yes, Intel would make ARM chips for Apple. But no, it probably wouldn’t be a win for either company. Here’s why.
For the longest time, there were no Lightning docks available for iPhones or iPads, and it looks like Apple will never make one. I have some thoughts on why that might be, but we’ll get to that in a bit. For now, we’re going to take a quick look at the seemingly crappy dock I picked up from Amazon last month. It’s called the “White Wave Lightning Dock Docking Charge Station for Apple iPad Mini/ iPad 4G/ iPhone 5/ iPod Touch 5G/ iPod Nano 7G,” which should give you some idea of the kind of SEO-mad company behind it.
I shall apologize now for bringing you yet another crowd-funded gadget today, but this is something special. I won’t dilly-dally here: It’s a frikkin’ Star Trek button for talking to Siri.
This Cult of Mac Deals offer will rock your world…quite literally.
That’s because we’re offering the BodyBuradz Bumps (with mic) – a tiny device that pumps out incredibly crisp sound, fantastic treble, and deep bass. The price is pretty rockin’ as well – only $19 — and that includes shipping — for a limited time!
Apple has been using Intel’s desktop processors in the Mac since 2005. The next-gen Haswell processor is expected to come in the next iteration of the iMac.
For years, a reoccurring rumor has been that Intel will eventually provide mobile processors for iOS devices. But Apple has been designing its own ‘A series’ of chips for the iPhone and iPad based on ARM. Would Apple really abandon what it’s doing on ARM for Intel, a chip maker that’s been really struggling on mobile?
Now another report claims that Apple and Intel have recently discussed a mobile partnership.
Wall Street has spent most of the last six months hyperventilating about the future of Apple, chomping at their fingernails and openly wondering if Apple is taking too long to innovate in the post-Jobs era.
Over at the Apple Gazette, Robin Parrish has put together a simple graphic, showing Apple’s historic product pillars. Essentially, if you add it all up, the average time between major product pillars for Apple is three years and ten months.
Flexibits’ fantastic calendar app Fantastical has reached v1.1. In numerical terms, this is just the addition of 0.1 to the original 1.0. But in terms of app goodness, it’s much more hugerer.
There’s no shortage of weather apps in the App Store. Every week it seems like a new weather app is enticing us with beautiful graphics and a unique design aesthetic.
While the apps are plentiful, there hasn’t been any mobile-oriented hardware related to checking the weather. It’s an untapped market many haven’t given much thought to. In the age of the iPhone, what value does a traditional thermometer even have?
Robocat has already put out some great iOS weather apps, and now it’s launching a Kickstarter campaign for Thermodo, a physical thermometer which integrates with the iPhone.
Infinite Dreams has come a long way since we first discovered their virtual-pottery app, Let’s Create Pottery HD, at the App Store in 2010. They’ve since created a smash-hit tower defense game, and unveiled the first touchscreen coin-slot arcade console based off an iOS game.
Now, with the help of 3D printing, they’re turning virtual pottery into the real thing.
Do you present a lot? Maybe PowerPoint or Keynote presentations in front of lots of busy professionals? Have you ever had that nightmare where you get to your hotel and realize that you forgot to make the presentation you give the next morning? Yeah, me neither.
However, if I did wake up to that horrifying reality, I’d grab Stitch, an iPhone app that lets you make video presentations using your own pictures and text in minutes, right from your iPhone. Here’s how.
The Beamhaus Pocket is a premium leather sleeve for the iPhone 5 that’s “inspired by old baseball mitts, broken-in leather jackets, and long-loved boots.” It’s made from hand-selected leather from the Horween Leather Company, the oldest tannery in the United States, and it’s built to provide your iPhone with complete protection from everyday scratches and scrapes.
On the front of the Pocket, there’s a little pouch that’ll hold up to three credit cards — according to Beamhaus — plus a large cutout at the bottom that allows you to access your Lightning connector and hear your speaker. The Pocket is also lined with suede, which aims to prevent your shiny iPhone 5 from getting damaged as you slip it in and out of the case.
The Pocket is available in black and tan, and it’s priced at $59.99. Read on to find out whether it’s worth it.
Not everyone is convinced that Apple’s iWatch would be a success, and you can add Swatch’s CEO, Nick Hayek, to the pile of detractors.
Hayek says that he doesn’t think the iWatch will be a revolutionary device, because your wrist can’t handle a display big enough to interact with. But despite Hayek’s aversion to the iWatch, Apple’s reached out to him over the years for help on materials and watch batteries.
Everyone’s favorite recalcitrant Scottish blogger, programmer and whisky drinker Matt “Legend” Gemmel has made available these fantastic iPhone 5 wallpapers, ready for your retro-tendo reminiscences.
Matt made the set of five tall-papers (what I somewhat annoyingly just decided to call the iPhone 5’s tall wallpapers) to commemorate his new-found love of Nintendo gaming on the Mac.
Sharp has this morning announced a ¥10.4 billion ($112 million) investment from Samsung that will provide the latter with a 3% stake in the company. It makes Samsung the biggest individual shareholder in the Japanese display maker, and secures its access to Sharp’s LCD panel supplies.
The investment comes at a time when Sharp has been struggling. The company received a $4.4 billion bailout from the banks in October 2012, and its iPad display orders from Apple were recently cut as consumer demand shifted to the smaller iPad mini, which Sharp is not involved with.
If you’re an Apple fanboy that reads a lot of tech websites, you may have come across the name Andy Ihnatko before. Andy’s been a hardcore Apple fanboy for years. He’s got a column at the Chicago Sun Times and Macworld, and he’s on a popular Apple podcast almost weekly.
Sadly, Andy’s decided that his love for the iPhone 4S has died. He’s switched to Android. The two of them are happy. But Andy wants you to know why he’s switched to Android, so he’s published a monster story to give you all the details.
If you love jailbreaking and all the little tweaks that come with it, then you’re probably very familiar with Cydia. It’s the number one place to go to if you want to find hacks for your iPhone or iPad, but it also kind of sucks at the same time.
Cydia is massively unorganized and slow when there’s a rush to jailbreak. Most people want to blame its creator, Saurik, for its weaknesses, but in a recent discussion on jailbreaking, Saurik admitted those things bug him too, but there’s not much he can do about it.
TC Electronic’s Flashback guitar pedal ($169) is a multitalented piece of gear. Its robust set of delay and loop features make it easy to get lost in hours of guitar playing, but when paired with a Mac or iOS device, it does something no other pedals can do.
