Samuel L. Jackson may love Siri, but are every-day users as smitten? Find out what we think on our latest CultCast.
And someone call King Arthur, Jony Ive just got knighted. But is he ready to protect the realm?
All that and our thoughts on Facebook’s new Camera app on The CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes and read on for our show notes.
Another day, another neat, camera-like iPhone case. But I promise you that this one is different. First, it manages to be highly functional without doing very much at all. Secondly, it’s actually a case you will want to keep on your iPhone and carry around with you all day.
Over the course of May, we’ve highlighted a number of different mobile management companies in our Mobile Management Month series. Profiling these companies made me realize how much the mobile management market has expanded to include cloud or SaaS options in addition to on-premise servers installed inside a company’s network.
That’s hardly surprising really – after all cloud models are being applied to almost every type of business computing need.
There are several significant and attractive advantages to using a cloud service as your approach to mobile management, particularly for small businesses.
Vowels are dropped from names so commonly these days that it can only end with the leftover consonants becoming so jammed together that they will densify and densify into some kind of alphanumerical black hole, dragging in all words until us humans will be rendered mute, and I will be forced to shut up once and for all.
And if you thought that paragraph had nothing to do with the next gadget, you’re dead wrong. It’s called the Statc (missing vowel) and it’s a camera “tripod” consisting of nothing but a big lump of super-strong magnet (black-hole-like attraction).
Over the past several months, Box has reinvented itself. The company went from being a pretty basic cloud storage solution to true enterprise solution and a hub for storing, viewing, and editing all manner of documents on an iPad or other mobile device. Box’s journey continued this week as the company launched a series of new features for business and enterprise customers.
I scoffed whan I first saw the PR e-mail for this Bluetooth iOS remote. Literally: I made a weird, half-snoring, half LOL-ing noise into my coffee. If that doesn’t count as a “scoff,” I don’t know what does.
Anyhow, after my initial (and messy) reaction, I quickly changed my mind. This thing packs in so many useful funcions, and does it in such a (fairly) handsome package that now I’m considering buying one.
Not only do Gizmon’s Clip-On Lenses offer a smart and speedy way to mount them on your iPhone, but they also break with the now-common fisheye-telephoto-wideangle triumvirate (mostly at least), instead coming in fisheye, polarizer and “3-image mirage filter” flavors. Better still, they will also play just fine with your iPad 2 or 3.
Like we told you would happen earlier this week, the Chronic Dev Team has released Absinthe 2.0 today, a jailbreak for nearly all iOS devices, including the third-gen iPad, running the newly-released iOS 5.1.1. Absinthe 2.0 is an untethered jailbreak, meaning you won’t have to re-jailbreak every time you reboot your iOS device.
Chronic Dev Team hacker pod2g told the world last weekend that this latest jailbreak was only a “matter of days” away, and it turns out that he was right.
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.
Absolute Manage MDM provides all the major mobile management capabilities. In addition device and app management, Absolute Manage MDM offers a secure on-device file store option called AbsoluteSafe that can be used to deliver files directly to user devices. AbsoluteSafe includes the ability to automate access to files by policies or schedule in addition to on-demand file deployment, removal, or access rights adjustments. The suite integrates with the company’s Absolute desktop client management (Mac and Windows) and deployment suite, together they can provide complete IT and lifecycle management features mobile devices, Macs, PCs, and software.
When you jailbreak an iOS device, you are given access to Cydia, the wild west frontier of tweaks, themes and apps you can’t get in Apple’s own App Store. Jailbreaking gives you the freedom to customize your device the way you see fit by installing various plugins, system-level extensions, tweaks and apps from Cydia.
After awhile, you can amass quite a few Cydia apps and packages, and it’s important to keep your purchases and downloads backed up for safe keeping. Whether it’s a jailbreak tweak you paid $2 for or a free one, you don’t want to lose what you find during your jailbreaking career.
Every several months a new jailbreak will come out for the latest version of iOS, and you’ll need to re-jailbreak your iOS device. Restoring to a stock version of iOS before jailbreaking removes all of your jailbreak apps and tweaks. In Cult of Mac’s ultimate roundup, we’ll show you the best ways to backup and restore your Cydia apps on your jailbroken iOS device.
AT&T has begun shutting down its 2G service in New York to free up spectrum for 3G and 4G customers. The shut down will effect a number of mobile phones that rely on 2G service for voice and data.
If you’re still using an original iPhone that doesn’t support 3G, it isn’t time to worry just yet. At least initially, the AT&T will only be shutting down one of the frequency bands that it uses to provide 2G service. Frequency that is supported by the original iPhone will be maintained for the foreseeable future.
TSA is the latest U.S. federal agency to make a significant investment in Apple technologies in what may be a move away from RIM’s BlackBerry and Windows PCs. The agency is set to start a pilot program that will run over the next three years and will involve heavy investment in Macs, iPhones, iPads, and even Apple TVs.
According to federal documents (PDF link), the security agency plans to spend $3 million on Apple products and has an amazingly wide range of uses for them in mind. The plans go well beyond the scope of Apple investments made by other U.S. government agencies like the EPA and FAA, which focus primarily on iPhones and/or iPads.
Take one look at my cellphone and you’ll either laugh at me, pity me or envy me. It’s a Sony Ericsson P900, a brick of a smartphone introduced in 2003, and I got it when my P800 was stolen from my bag in London’s Soho (at that time, Orange in the UK gave you free insurance for your phones — go figure).
And after a few years of struggling with various dumbphones and the execrable Samsung Behold, I’m back to the P900 and I love it. Why? Because it was designed to be used like the iPhone, not crippled by carriers like everything else these days.
If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to build an iPhone & iPad game but didn’t know how to code, you’ve come to the right place. The latest Cult of Mac Deals offer is a video course featuring over 8.5 hours of information that will teach you how to build an iPhone/iPad game using Game Salad – a free third-party piece of software.
This course is aimed at beginners who want to make games today but have no desire to program (or want an easier starting point than traditional coding courses). This offer is aimed at people who want to save money in the process, as you’ll get access to The iOS Games Workshop for only $79 for a limited time!
Sprint took a gamble on the iPhone last fall. In exchange for getting the iPhone 4 and 4S on its network, the company agreed to pay $15 billion in subsidies over the next four years. The company acknowledged that it pays 40% more to subsidize the iPhone than it does for Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone handsets. To get shareholders on board, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse actually gave up $3.25 million in compensation.
It looks like Sprint’s investment may be paying off in unexpected. A new study by the Yankee Group revealed this week that the iPhone has a halo effect for carriers as well as it does for other Apple products – an effect that dramatically changed public perception of Sprint once it began carried the iPhone.
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.
This post is brought to you by SolarWinds, an IT software management company with more than 93,000 customers worldwide – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses. Click here to download a free 30-Day Trial of Mobile Admin from SolarWinds. Author: Denny LeCompte Coauthor: Stephanie Mitchell.
Which smartphone or tablet are you bringing to work?
With the constant stream of news emerging in the Apple versus Android battle, we think it’s time to look at which devices the IT pros are choosing, and how recent trends are affecting what devices are brought into work.
The first thing the vast majority of us would do in the event that our precious iPhone is stolen is load up the Find My iPhone feature within iCloud and then call the Police and tell them where the shameless thug is located, in the hope that they’ll find the time to go and recover our device. Some of us may even take matters into our own hands and try to recover it ourselves (but that’s not really recommended.)
But when Michael Meehan’s son had his iPhone stolen, he took advantage of his position as Chief of Police in Berkeley, California, and ordered ten of his officers to track it down. All off the books.
We already know that between hundreds of different Android builds and handsets, Google’s smartphone OS is hopelessly fragmented, and requires immense expense and time on the part of developers to get even a simple app working reliably.
But the problem with Android — and why it’s such a bitch to develop for — goes deeper than just too many handsets and OS builds to support. Even developing a simple music app for Android is a nightmare due to Android fragmentation, because Google couldn’t even get volume control on Android right out of the box.
The Pebble watch is pretty neat and all ($10 million can’t all be totally wrong), but even with e-ink and low-powered Bluetooth it still needs charging way more than a regular watch. It’s also rather plasticky and dorky-looking.
The Cuckoo might not be able to fix the second part, looking as it does like a rather dull take on a Swatch, but it can certainly fix the first.
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.
Tarmac is a fairly focused device management option from Mac and iOS developer equinux (makers of the Mac utility VPN Tracker). Tarmac focuses on delivering the core iOS management needs with low overhead. equinux’s narrow focus on just iOS allows the company to provide a wide range of enterprise systems integration options. Tarmac specifically targets the small business market with separate small/medium business and larger enterprise versions.
Sometimes a good idea doesn’t have to be radical. It doesn’t have to have a $70,000 Kickstarter goal. Sometimes a good idea is just simplicity itself: easy to produce, affordable to own, beautifully designed and genuinely useful.
That’s what makes our eyes pop about The Wrap. Designed by Michiel Cornelissen, the Wrap is a simple plug that fits on the USB end of a European iPhone wall charger. Thread your 30-pin dock connector cable through The Wrap and you can easily wrap the whole cord around it. That’s it. Just EUR 9.95.
I love this. It’s just beautifully useful and wonderfully understated. And while The Wall is Europe-only for now, Cornelissen says that if 100 people email him saying they want a US version, he’ll make one. Get clamoring, people.
Source: Michiel Cornelissen
Ever wanted to check out the ghost of your city past? Interested in experiencing the history of the spaces around you? Well, you just may be able to do that with this free app from Enlighten Ventures, LLC.
Brains have been dashed out and arteries spilled over the perfect parking space. Finding a good spot in a busy neighborhood and keeping it secret and safe is the kind of thing many commuters approach with Gandalfish intensity. The rule of thumb is: if you find a good parking space, by all means, never, ever give it up willingly.
Here’s a better idea, though. Instead of fighting tooth and claw for that el primo parking spot, why not keep it in the family instead, passing it onto others in exchange for information about other awesome, open parking spots in the same neighborhood? In other words, why not let parking generate you some good karma? That’s the idea behind a new app, Kurb Karma, and it looks awesome.
There has recently been a lot of concern into the way in which our iOS apps access our personal data, and then what they do with it once it has been collected. Since the whole Path debacle in particular, users seem to be more concerned by the issue than ever before.
BitDefender is one security firm looking to capitalize upon that concern with a new app called Clueful, which promises reveal what each of your apps is doing with your data and identify the “misdemeanant apps on your iPhone.”
Remember that snazzy “fold to unlock” concept for the iPhone that we told you about last week? Just like a lot of software concepts, developers have now turned it into a fully functional tweak for jailbroken devices, and it’s available to download now via Cydia.