You lucky thing. The summer’s over, or nearly over, and you’re already planning on heading back to school. Just like last year, you will begin this year fresh and full of energy and enthusiasm, only to be ground down by the man. Luckily, we’re here to help with advice on the best apps and gear to get you through the year and into next year’s summer vacation with the least effort possible.
So sit back, relax and take a look at the Cult of Mac back to school/college superguide.
Social bookmarking service Pinterest today announced a new app for Android and iOS in a move to appeal to an even larger audience. If you’ve not used the service, it’s like a image-based social bookmarking system. You “pin” websites to your own Pinterest account, then share the pinned bookmarks via categorical lists. It has a heavy Facebook and Twitter integration as well, and last week it opened the doors to the general public, not requiring an invite any longer.
NFL teams may be embracing the iPad, but the league seems a bit mixed in its approach to fans carrying iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices. Despite a plan announced earlier this summer that NFL stadiums would be equipped with large-scale Wi-Fi access along with mobile apps for fans to use while at a game, the NFL has decided to take a much more cautious approach to game-day technology.
Earlier this year, amid reports that tickets sales for NFL had fallen for a fifth straight year in a row, the league announced free Wi-Fi and some ambitious in-stadium perks for fans willing to put down the money to see their favorite team play in person. Unfortunately for most fans, only five stadiums will be offering these features during the 2012 season.
Another study of the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon concludes that the trend of employees bringing the personal iPhones, iPads, and other devices into the office shows no sign of slowing down. It also confirms previous reports that indicate many personal devices being used in the workplace don’t have even basic security features enabled.
The study by Coalfire, a company the specializes in IT risk management services, paints a particularly grim picture of the lack of security for iOS and Android devices in the workplace. With the BYOD trend show no signs of slowing or ending, Coalfire CEO Rick Dakin, notes that companies cannot afford to keep ignoring mobile security concerns.
As we mentioned in yesterday’s tip, sometimes you need to just clear out some space from your iPhone or iPad to make room for new photos as they come in, whether you’re taking them on the device itself or using PhotoStream. As one commenter mentioned yesterday, all these different sources of photos tend to make the number of them add up.
But what if you just want to dump a bunch of photos at once, say, while you’re away from the computer? Turns out, it’s just as easy as pie. Or cake. Whatever.
By huge coincidence, I downloaded the brand new Withings app moments after its launch, almost by accident. The new app, which is iPhone-only (or pixel-doubled on the iPad) until a future update arrives), does a much nicer job than the old one of tying together the data from Withings’ various health devices, and remains completely free.
For any fantasy football fan, draft day can be filled with mixed emotions – excitement at the impending start of the season, hope that you’ll get to build your dream team, and nervousness about where you’ll be in the draft order and whether or not you’ll get your top picks before someone else does.
Predicting the outcome of any fantasy draft is hard to do because there are so many variables in terms of drafting order, draft type, the team that you want to build, and the choices that other members of your league will make. That said, solid research and preparation can go a long way to helping you build a winning team and there are some great iPhone and iPad apps out there to help you before and during your draft.
Pop quiz: what color is the mirror inside your camera? If you answered “No color. It’s a mirror. What the hell are you on about this time, Sorrel?” then you’re dead wrong. Kinda. It turns out that mirrors are ever-so-slightly green.
Rumors surrounding Apple’s next iPhone have reached a fever pitch in the weeks leading up to the expected announcement date, September 12th. With pre-orders rumored to begin on the same day, Apple is expected to see record sales this holiday season. Anticipation for the next iPhone is higher than it’s ever been, and smartphone sales from the past quarter reflect that fact.
Gartner’s results for Q2 show slowed iPhone growth, with Apple sitting behind Samsung and Nokia in worldwide smartphone sales.
Meta is yet another photo filter app for the iPhone, but if you have any interest in this kind of thing, you should just go and buy it right now (it’s just one lousy buck).
Meta gives you a bunch of live filters through which you can snap pictures, and lets you share and upload to the usual places. The difference here is that the filters are genuinely new, and that you’re going to love them.
With Nintendo adamant it’ll never bring its games to iOS, the only way to enjoy your favorite titles on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is to jailbreak your device and download an emulator. But that’s no longer the case. You can now enjoy more than 100 NES and Game Boy games in your iPhone’s web browser.
Apple claims that its internal research shows that the main reason US smartphone consumers purchased an Android phone instead of an iPhone was in order to stay with their current carrier. The study only covers the US smartphone marked and was brought up by Samsung today as court evidence in the patent infringement trial between the two companies in Northern California.
The study was published at Apple in January of 2011, and shows that 48 percent of those surveyed said that they had went with an Android phone because they “wanted to stay with current wireless provider.”
36 percent said that they “trusted the Google brand,” while 30 percent just like bigger screens. Sometimes, bigger *is* better, according to these folks.
Photos take up a lot of space on our iOS devices. It’s important to many of us with the lower end iPhones to leave enough room on the device to capture new photos, let alone apps and music and books.
With the advent of Photostream, it’s easy to have the photos we take on our iPhone show up on our Macs or iPads, so deleting them from the iPhone makes a lot of sense and is much less of a scary proposition. Here’s how.
Apple is expected to unveil the next iPhone at a rumored media event Wednesday, September 12th. Today iMore reports that Apple will start U.S. pre-orders for the sixth-gen iPhone on the same day as the announcement. International customers will reportedly have to wait until the first week of October to place pre-orders.
iMore originally reported the September 12th announcement date and an in-store U.S. release date of Friday, September 21st.
When I first glimpsed the Highline, I teased, calling it “an almost spectacularly misguided idea.” The Highline is a curly cable which hooks into your iDevice’s 30-pin dock connector and keeps it safe from drops and attempted snatch-and-grabs. Despite my conclusions, the kind folks at Kenu sent one over to the Cult of Mac test labs to check out. And while I’d probably never have a use for one, it turns out that it does its job just fine.
Your iPhone contains a whole lotta information about your personal life. You got your bank apps, email, text messages, phone calls, browsing history, plus all those embarrassing songs you listen to on Spotify you don’t want people to know about.
You don’t expect to get hardcore encryption security on a tiny iPhone, and when the iPhone was first released in 2007 you didn’t. Huge security holes allowed hackers to easily take over the device, but Apple learned from their mistakes, and now your iPhone is like a freaking Fort Knox for data. Even the NSA is having a hard time breaking iPhone encryption, and it’s frustrating the hell out them.
Scientific instruments usually look crazy weird and aren’t designed to be user-friendly for the every day, non-scientist man. Lapka is looking to change that with their beautifully designed, semi-affordable Personal Environmental Monitor.
Lapka allows iPhone users to attach four different measuring instruments which can test for radiation, nitrates, humidity, and electromagnetic frequency, so you can create a perfect climate in your home, make sure your food is truly organic, find the perfect spot for your router, and make sure you’re not going to get cancer.
Will the next iPhone have an 8 pin or 9 pin dock connector? The iOS 6 beta says 9,
While Apple’s latest iOS 6 beta didn’t make any significant changes to the platform’s front-end — aside from removing the YouTube app — it did make some changes under the hood. In addition to “bug fixes,” it appears the fourth beta has made some improvements to App Store download times that make updating your apps super snappy.
If I owned an iPhone, then I’d already have bought the Olloclip lens, a clip on widget which adds fisheye, macro and wideangle lenses to the iPhone using a slip-over clip. It’s impossible to line it up wrong, and it fits in a pocket or bag. But I don’t have an iPhone. I have an iPad. And I hate futzing around with all the magnetic lenses I have: they’re easy to lose, easy to get dirty and impossible to line up. What I need is a Mobi-Lens, a universal clip-on lens from Kickstarter.
It seems like Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone will be the first iOS device to boast a brand new, mini dock connector when it launches this fall. But there have been rumors that claim Apple will refresh all its iOS devices to make the new connector a standard across its entire lineup.
Not only does this seem highly unlikely, but there’s one reason why it’s an impossibility: Apple’s supply chain just couldn’t handle a refresh that big.
The BBC has updated its iOS today, finally delivering high-resolutions visuals for the third-generation iPad. It also introduces “improved video performance,” better accessibility with VoiceOver controls, and more.
As we edge closer towards the unveiling of Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone next month, component leaks have hit their peak. Last week we showed you images of some of the handset’s internals — including a number of flex cables and a display shield — and today we get our first glimpse at what appears to be the iPhone 5’s logic board.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a brand new Twitter client called Slices, which claims to be the world’s first Twitter app that allows you to break your timeline into individual streams, follow live events, browse Twitter by category, and more. We also have a “magical” app called Cardiio that accurately monitors your heart rate simply by looking at your face; the best blogging app for iPad yet called Pages; and more.
Heading up this week’s must-have iOS games roundup is a brand new Ghostbusters game that promises to be the best augmented reality game in the App Store. We also have a great online strategy game in the form of Tiny War XD, Activision’s legendary Pitfall!, and more.