Samsung has dealt Apple a nasty blow by increasing the price of its mobile processors — the ones built into every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — by 20%. According to a person familiar with negotiations between the two companies, Apple initially disapproved the price hike, but was forced to accept it with no replacement supplier available.
Following the supply problems Apple has faced with the iPhone 5, the Cupertino company is reportedly woking to ensure that it is better prepared for the iPhone 5S by trialling production way ahead of the handset’s public release. According to one Chinese newspaper, it will begin production of up to 100,000 iPhone 5S units this December.
Microsoft’s awesome Xbox app for iOS got a major update this week, and it’s kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup. It’s accompanied by another great update to Clear, a terrific list-management tool; plus a nifty counting app for iPhone, and a new photography app that lets you apply awesome effects to your photos.
Apple’s current “hobby” — also known as Apple TV — doesn’t tell us much about Apple’s future plans for the living room.
It’s a good product under the right circumstances. But five years from now, living rooms are going to be transformed by all-encompassing systems that turn TVs into video phones, gaming systems, home automation control centers and artificial intelligence assistants.
Does Apple have what it takes to compete in the living room?
Lucky Frame made one of my favorite games on iOS ever, Pugs Luv Beats. It’s no surprise, given the game’s focus on my favorite dogs of all time and a wicked-cool beat-making mechanic, adorable graphics, and a spin-off app, Pug Synth. They put out Bad Hotel, next, a quirky and innovative take on the castle defense genre that has the games studio’s signature graphic style and musical theme.
Now they’re taking a similar electronica vibe and marrying it with a two-button, arcade-style side-scrolling game on iOS called Wave Trip. And it looks a beaut.
Mike Schramm writes about technology and games for Joystiq and TUAW during the week. He’s also a pretty decent guy. He also finds it fun to code on the weekends. I know, it makes no sense to me, either.
Schramm has just released his second iOS game to the iTunes app store, and it’s called Benediction. Actually, the full name is Benediction – a game by Mike Schramm, a name most likely necessitated by the many other apps out there with a version of the word ‘benediction’ in the title.
Benediction has three things going for it. Those three things got me to download the game, then play the game, then continue playing the game until I was forced to set my iPhone down and actually do some work. This is a great game, and you’ll be sad if you don’t check it out for yourself.
Did you know you could use Siri, Apple’s personal voice assistant, without unlocking your iPhone? Well, you can. Hold the Home button for the few seconds it takes for Siri’s purple microphone icon to show up, and you can ask it to do anything you like, like making a phone call, composing a Tweet, or sending an iMessage. This is a great feature for the person who owns the iPhone, but what about someone who finds your iPhone, or that one friend who can’t keep from messing with your stuff?
Luckily, you can turn this “feature” off, thereby preventing this from happening. Here’s how.
Advertisements are a vital part of what makes the Internet tick. Even though a lot of them are annoying and intrusive and ugly as hell, they provide websites (like us) with the cash flow needed to give you all the infotainment you can eat for free.
Sometimes those ads are just freaking horrific, and solutions like AdBlock make the web a better, more visually appealing place. Now you can get the hardware equivalent of ad-blocking software in a super portable box called AdTrap.
When you order an iPhone 5 from Apple’s website the current shipment timeline is 3-4 weeks. Foxconn’s chairman Terry Gou recently said that they’re having a hardtime keeping up with the demand because the iPhone 5 is the most complex gadget they’ve ever assembled.
It doesn’t sound like Apple is able to catch up with the demand for the iPhone 5 in a timely manner, but one analyst at BTIG Research says that supply of the iPhone 5 is “almost in balance.”
The iPhone is fast becoming one of the most – if not the most – used cameras on the planet. But serious photographers know that nothing really beats a DSLR in terms of quality – and any serious hobbyist knows that as well. So if you’re looking to get some superior shooting, then learning how to use a DSLR camera is a must. And for those who already have a DSLR camera, I’m betting that you’r probably not using it to its full potential.
You’re not alone…I’m in the same boat. That’s why this latest Cult of Mac Deals offer is so huge. You’ll get two online courses that will help you achieve DSLR mastery and take your digital photography skills to new heights – and all for just $39!
Back in August, Square partnered with Starbucks to bring mobile payments to the coffee giant’s thousands of stores nationwide. Starbucks said that Square would be integrated into 7,000 of its stores across the U.S. by early November, and now the time has come.
Square has the ability to open a virtual tab with a merchant so you don’t have to scan your iPhone at the register, but Starbucks isn’t adopting this functionality. You’ll have to scan your iPhone after you order, like Passbook.
Thanks to our friends over at Digiarty, Cult of Mac Deals is able to hook you up with a Mac app that allows those of you who are still ripping DVDs – say for backing up data or preparing home movies for the grandparents – to rip DVD to video/audio formats on Mac OS.
With MacX DVD Ripper Pro, you can back up DVDs in multiple formats to ensure you don’t lose precious memories or costly software, and you can even rip encrypted DVD to a slew of iOS devices in minutes without compromising quality!
And the best part is that you can get this Cult of Mac Deals offer for free!
The little Jambox speaker isn’t the loudest, or even the best-sounding portable speaker out there, but somehow it is the most popular, and it’s probably the most portable. And it’s certainly the most cute.
I have one and I love it. Sometimes, though, you just need more. And that’s the idea of the Big Jambox, the best-named product of the year. Is it just a bigger version of its little brother? Kinda, but not quite.
Despite launching the fastest-selling iPhone to date just over a month ago, in addition to a new iPad mini that’s sure to be a big hit this Christmas, Apple is suffering from a surprising yet swift decline in stock value. Just weeks after reaching a $705 high, it now sits at its lowest price in over five months.
Many will dismiss the decline as a rare dip, confident that Apple will bounce back bigger and stronger than before. But others are questioning its ability to do so with ever increasing competition from its rivals. ABC Nightline asks whether Apple has “lost its shine.”
According to a new rumor, iPhone assembler Foxconn Electronics is discussing plans to build manufacturing plants in the U.S. Possible locations for the new plants include Detroit and Los Angeles, but Foxconn may be conducting evaluations in other cities as well.
Foxconn and Apple have come under fire over the last few years for terrible working conditions in assembly plants. The assembly of the iPhone and iPad being conducted in China rather than the U.S. was even a debate point in the recent presidential election. Bringing manufacturing jobs into the U.S. may help heal Foxconn’s reputation.
Fantastical is an awesome little calendar app originally developed for OS X by Flexibits. It sits in your Mac’s menu bar and provides you with quick and easy access to your appointments and reminders. You’re probably already familiar with it; we’ve covered it a number of times here on Cult of Mac, and we’re big fans.
Which is why we’re pleased to tell you that Fantastical is coming to your iPhone.
Just like Blue Microphone’s non-digital Spark, the new, Digital Spark microphone has been put together with an armful of we’re-not-playing-around components and features. Things like a beefed-up condenser capsule, a Focus selector that toggles between a low-frequency bias and a detail bias, and an adjustable desk stand with shock mount. But this Spark is built for iPads (or iPhones); though its USB connector means it’ll work just fine with your MacBook Pro, iMac, Sony Vaio, Samsung Galaxy Tab or anything else with a USB input.
I’ll be honest. The real reason I’m writing this post is because I get to say “Tally Ho!” in the headline, and to tell you an interesting fact about place names and exclamation points. But more on that in a second.
Tally is a new iPhone app from Agile Tortoise, the developer behind the most essential iOS app there is: Drafts. Tally is a very simple app designed to do one thing: count.
Foxconn CEO Terry Gou has revealed that dealing with Apple’s overwhelming iPhone demand is not an easy task. The company is still struggling to catch up with the strong sales the iPhone has been enjoying, but Gou would not confirm whether the group’s other unit, Foxconn International Holdings, has taken on some of its production.
A federal jury in Texas has ordered Apple to pay patent holding firm (“patent troll”) VirnetX $368 million for a patent-infringement complaint. Following its success, VirnetX is now working to get Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and Mac products banned.
The world converges yet again as Microsoft has just updated its My Xbox app, which released last December, giving it a new name to boot. SmartGlass has been the talk of the gaming community since E3 this past summer, as the technology and gaming giant launched its intitiative to rule your living room using the devices you already have; namely, your iPad, iPhone, or Android device.
If you’re looking for that retro-nostalgic Polaroid-style experience from your iPhone, you could wait till March of next year and purchase one of those fancy soon-to-be-in-production Instagram Socialmatic cameras. That’s if they actually come to fruition.
Or, you could try out Polatax, an unfortunately named photo filter app that builds itself around the concept of Polaroid-like photos.
With the launch of iOS 6, Apple debuted a new panorama mode built into the camera app that allows users to take stunning widescreen panorama photos with almost no effort. Unfortunately, these photos have made for little more than a cool demo until now, because there’s been no good way to share them.
Enter PanoPerfect, an app that’s designed specifically around sharing your panoramic photos. While it’s probably the first of its kind, its sure not short on features.
You’ve got yourself a new iPhone 5 and are looking for something that just won’t show it off – but will show it off with style. You also want to offer it some protection at the same time and have it stand out from the crowd.
If that’s what you’re looking for, then look no further because the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer will leave you and your iPhone 5, well…glowing. We’re offering a limited quantity of Glow Gel Combos to our continental US readers for only $24 – and they won’t last long at that price.
If you use Evernote, it’s possible that you store everything in there that you possibly can. Now, thanks to the MySMS service, you can also archive your text messages in your favorite everything-bucket.