Mobile menu toggle

News - page 1263

Christian Bale in talks to step into Jobs this spring

By •

The hero Cupertino deserves. Photo: Mike Marsland/WireImage
Bale is the front-runner for the role. Photo: Mike Marsland/WireImage

Entertainment insiders are saying that Oscar-winner Christian Bale will start filming Jobs this Spring as Apple’s late CEO and wonder-boy, Steve Jobs.

According to Variety, Bale is in talks to star as the mercurial tech leader in the movie based on the biography by Walter Issacson and a script written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network).

Fitbit’s pulse weakens as it gets kicked out of Apple Stores

By •

Apple is giving FitBit the boot to make way for Apple Watch. Photo: Fitbit
Apple is giving FitBit the boot to make way for Apple Watch. Photo: Fitbit

Fitbit’s lineup of activity trackers may soon get exiled from the Apple Store, sources have told Recode, as Apple prepares to launch its own lineup of wearables next year.

It’s unclear whether other activity trackers will suffer the same fate, but the move comes just days after FitBit announced it has no plans to support iOS 8’s HealthKit in the near future, which makes it easy for iOS users to track all of their fitness data in one app.

Why HBO’s web-only subscription is great news for Apple TV

By •

apple_TV_HBO_GO
Photo: Apple

The death of cable TV bundling is nearly upon us, as signaled by HBO’s announcement today that it will offer an internet-based streaming subscription in 2015.

“That is a large and growing opportunity that should no longer be left untapped,” said HBO CEO and chairman Richard Plepler. “It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO.”

That’s big news in an industry that has been incredibly resistant to disruptors like Apple. And the Apple TV specifically stands to gain immensely from this shift towards Hollywood finally selling premium content unbundled.

10 new movies reveal roadmap for DC Comics’ cinematic universe

By •

Wonder Woman in 2017! Photo:Warner Bros. Pictures
Wonder Woman in 2017! Photo:Warner Bros. Pictures

At a Time Warner investor meeting on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara laid out his company’s plans to plaster movie houses with big DC-themed movies over the next six years, starting with Zach Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, set to release in 2016.

Disney-owned Marvel already dominates the box office with its comic-book team-ups like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy as well as movies based on top characters like Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

It’s going to be a tough job for Warner Bros. to catch up to Marvel, which has already laid a ton of groundwork in it’s previously released films for the ongoing cinematic dynasty, but this new list promises to please fans new and old.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel blasts onto the Mac with more shootin’ and lootin’

By •

Same-day release on Mac, PC, Linux, and console! Photo: Aspyr
Same-day release on Mac, PC, Linux, and console! Photo: Aspyr

Handsome Jack, the erstwhile villain of Borderlands 2, had to start somewhere. It’s not easy taking over an entire corporation, let alone a whole planet.

His story begins much more humbly, however, with Jack working as a programmer at Hyperion Corporation. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, in some part at least, aims to tell the story of this psychopath’s rise to power.

What’s even better is that this newly released game, available on all the consoles and PC on Steam, is also available for Mac thanks to the tireless efforts of the best Mac game publisher around, Aspyr.

That means that if you rock a Macintosh computer as your main gaming device (and why not, it’s a fantastic machine!), you’ll be able to shoot your way across the moon of Hyperion, floating through the air with every low gravity jump and using new awesome weapons like the ice and laser weapons.

Check out the trailer below, starring Mr. Torgue High-Five Flexington and Sir Hammerlock, for more hilariously over the top details.

Angry Birds Transformers ‘rolls out’ worldwide

By •

post-299657-image-a499e88c4de00b838eac408eb903649c-jpg

Autobirds, roll out! Fans of the Robots in Disguise will be pleased to hear that today marks the worldwide availability of Angry Birds Transformers, following its soft-launched in New Zealand, Finland, Canada and Australia last month.

Following the well-received Angry Birds Star Wars, the game takes another beloved childhood property and applies the popular Angry Birds formula, with an added 2D run-and-gun dimension that keeps the title feeling fresh.

Check out our above video by Cult of Mac’s own Joshua Smith for first impressions.

Check out this amazing ‘working’ iPhone in Minecraft

By •

Photo:
Photo: SHUFFLE/YouTube

In a game where you can build anything you want, it was only going to be so long before someone constructed an iPhone in Minecraft.

Even with that said, however, the version of Apple’s iconic handset which one player put together is impressive; being not just a block-based reconstruction of the iPhone’s outward appearance — but a slavish recreation of the iPhone UX, complete with iOS apps.

What to expect from tomorrow’s Apple event

By •

oct event invite

Until September, 2014 was a pretty quiet year for new Apple products. But the drought is over.

After announcing new iPhones and the Apple Watch last month, another media event is being held October 16th at Apple’s Town Hall auditorium on its Cupertino campus. “It’s been way too long,” joked Apple in its invitation to select members of the press. For those itching to see new iPad and Mac hardware, indeed.

While Town Hall is only a fraction of The Flint Center’s size, October 16th’s event shouldn’t be viewed as any less important. iPad sales are stagnant, and Apple’s desktop displays have been needing an upgrade for years. Apple Pay, an entirely new venture for the company, is expected to come out any day now. And then there’s always the chance that Apple still has at least one surprise up its sleeve.

Apple reportedly plans to debut 3-D logo for all future products

By •

iPhone-6-Logo-011
Photo: Nowhereelse.fr

Apple is reportedly upgrading the technologies used for printing its logo onto devices, using new laser-cutting and embedding technologies that will give the logo a 3-D appearance that will “shine at the edges.”

This logo is apparently set to feature on all new Apple products from next year, beginning with the the next-generation iMac.

The YouTube musician who made Steve Jobs dance with glee

By •

5405247587_da1449b59c_o
Jonathan Mann turns his fascination with Apple into catchy pop songs. Photo: Funcrunch Photo/Flickr

Steve Jobs wasn’t in the habit of dancing at Apple events. But in 2010, prior to a press conference where he addressed concerns about the new iPhone’s antenna, a song lampooning the controversy got Jobs dancing in the wings before he faced off with journalists.

The song in question, which played on a big screen to kick off the event, was the work of YouTube musician and Apple fan Jonathan Mann, who has spent the past five years composing a new song each day and posting it online.

“I heard later on from an Apple PR person that Steve Jobs was bopping along in the wings as the song was playing” at the Antennagate press conference, says Mann, speaking with Cult of Mac. “It was a surreal moment in my life.”

Antennagate went away, but Mann became the go-to guy for jingles about all things Cupertino. To date he has written 38 songs about Apple, touching  on everything from Craig Federighi’s WWDC performance to the unveiling of the Apple Watch. His clever ideas and quick turnaround times have turned him into YouTube’s premier Apple songsmith.

NASA captures Halloween cheer with jack-o’-lantern sun

By •

Black hole sun/Won't you come... Photo: NASA/SDO
Black hole sun/Won't you come... Photo: NASA/SDO

Is there anything cooler than images of our solar system? Especially ones of the actual Sol, or, our sun. No, there is not.

This fantastically seasonal Halloween image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which does nothing but stare at the sun all day and night in complete disregard of what its mother told it not to do.

Regardless, this image is amazing.

“The active regions in this image appear brighter,” writes NASA on its website, “because those are areas that emit more light and energy. They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.”

This image blends the images taken with two different ultraviolet wavelengths highlighted, one at 171 and the other at 193 Ångströms, to create this one-of-a-kind jack-o’-lantern sun.

Whatever — this thing is just creepy cool and I want a giant poster of it.

Source: NASA

This is who should have played Apple’s iPhone 6 event

By •

These rockers might have thrilled more people than U2 did. Screen capture: Late Night with David Letterman
These rockers might have thrilled more people than U2 did. Screen capture: Late Night with David Letterman

Imagine this: Tim Cook walks out on stage to introduce a special musical act at the end of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch event last month.

Instead of trotting out “aging Irish rockers,” though, imagine if the Foo Fighters came out. Then Zach Brown. And then they launched into the killer rendition of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” you can see below.

Imagine that.

Sapphire supplier COO made $1.2 million offloading shares before bankruptcy

By •

Could Gorilla Glass soon be even better than sapphire? Photo: Corning Glass
GTAT's sapphire glass didn't land in the iPhone, but its execs still made a fortune.

The sudden collapse of GT Advanced Technologies surprised everyone last week, including Apple, but according to new info obtained by the Wall Street Journal, key executives at GTAT knew its sapphire production deal was in trouble as early as February of this year.

Apple’s third payment of $103 million, which was due in February, wasn’t paid to GTAT on time according security filings which reveal GTAT faced sapphire production problems just months after inking its exclusive deal with Apple.

Supercapacitor-powered Bamboo speaker charges in minutes and lasts for hours

By •

This speaker charges in minutes, plays for hours. Photo: Blueshift
This speaker charges in minutes, plays for hours. Photo: Blueshift

A few years ago, Portland resident Sam Beck built a bike-powered speaker that wouldn’t cut off when he stopped pedaling at stoplights. He accomplished such a feat with an amazing new technology: supercapacitors.

Instead of stopping there, however, Beck decided to bring his vision to the portable bluetooth speaker market, and his company — Blueshift — was born. Crowd-funded and open sourced, these gorgeous bamboo speakers charge in minutes and sound amazing for hours. The original unit, called Helium, is a big, bold bamboo speaker that packs a ton of sound.

Beck is releasing a second generation speaker called Hydrogen on crowd-funding site Crowd Supply. This new boombox is smaller and a little less loud, but it’s the same quality and design as its larger sibling, and a little less pricey.

Part of the appeal, for Beck, of figuring out this entirely new way of powering a speaker was the inherent challenge of doing something that no one else had.

“It seemed like such a good idea,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone, “I wondered why no one else was doing it. I saw that there was another way to do things that no one else was doing.”

Check out the video below for more details on this gorgeous high-tech portable speaker cabinet.

The Macworld Expo conference is no more

By •

Steve Jobs presenting at Macworld in 2008. Photo: Dan Farber/ Flickr CC
Steve Jobs presenting at Macworld in 2008. Photo: Dan Farber/ Flickr CC

Macworld Expo, the conference where Steve Jobs unveiled products like the original iPhone and MacBook Air, is no more. After closing Macworld magazine and laying off much of its staff, parent company IDG has announced that 2015’s Macworld/iWorld Expo has been cancelled.

The MacIT conference for enterprise professionals will still take place next year, but Macworld itself has been put on “hiatus.”

How to access Hyperlapse’s secret settings and record in 1080p

By •

hyperlapseLABS

Instagram’s new Hyperlapse app is a phenomenal tool to capture buttery smooth timelapse video with more options and tweaks offered than iOS 8’s built-in timelapse feature. But if you’ve got a new iPhone 6 and want to record 1080p Hyperlapses you’re out of luck, unless you know how to access its secret settings menu.

Hyperlapsers can tap into their iPhone’s full potential by accessing the hidden ‘Labs’ menu that lets you tweak everything from your recording resolution, frame rate, speed multiplier options and even the sound levels.

Here’s how to access Hyperlapse’s secret settings:

Skullduggery will turn you into a skull-flinging tax collector and you’ll like it

By •

Flinging skulls, collecting taxes, like you do. Screengrab: Clutch Play Games
Flinging skulls, collecting taxes, like you do. Screengrab: Clutch Play Games

Picture this. You’re a disembodied skull with stretchy brain parts. You use this elasticity to fling yourself around the afterworld, Angry Birds-style, in order to collect taxes from the deadbeats who reside there.

Sound like fun? It is, oddly enough. While Skullduggery may be one of the odder platforming games you’ve played, it’s as challenging and action-packed as anything out there. Once you’ve wrapped your, ahem, head around the control scheme, you’ll find yourself flying through level after level with glee.

Check out the launch trailer below to get a sense of what we mean.

Apple Stores might fix broken Beats headphones

By •

Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr

If you’re not satisfied with the banging bass blasting out of your Beats headphones, you might soon be able to take them to the Genius Bar for a tune up.

Apple notified its service providers this morning that they will soon be responsible for offering post-sales support on all Beats headphones and speakers, according to an email obtained by TechInGreek, indicating Apple retail stores will be adding Beats support in the near future.

Here’s the note sent to official Apple Service Providers:

Apple offers female employees 21st-century fertility perk

By •

apple-genius
Apple now offers free egg freezing for female employees. Photo: Apple

Working for Apple takes an insane level of dedication, so to help keep its top female talent around long, Apple is joining Facebook to provide free egg freezing for non-medical reasons.

Successful egg freezing allows women extend their fertility by storing eggs at a younger age for use when they’re older. The new process has become a viable family planning option for women who don’t want to put their career on hold, but procedures usually come at a steep price.

What if the new iPads were as pretty as the iPhone 6?

By •

Photo: Martin Hajek
Photo: Martin Hajek

When the next generation iPads are unveiled this Thursday, we’re expecting a thinner form factor, recessed volume buttons, refined speaker grills, gold color option and, of course, Touch ID.

But what if Apple went ahead and rethought the devices’ design language so as to match up with the stunning appearance of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus?

That’s the idea behind some beautiful new 3D renderings from one of our favorite concept designers Martin Hajek, who previously imagined what it might look like if the iPad was also struck with a case of Bendgate.

Check them out after the jump.

‘Strong demand’ for new iPads earns manufacturer big revenue boost

By •

Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

People may talk about tablet sales flatlining, but if earnings of iPad parts makers are anything to go by, Tim Cook was absolutely right when he called this year’s sales lull a mere “speed bump.”

Casetek Holdings, aka the Pegatron subsidiary responsible for constructing the iPad chassis, has announced impressive revenues of 108.22 million for September: an increase of 21.25 percent on month and 16.48 percent on year.

According to a new report from Digitimes, this growth is the result of shipments for Apple’s eagerly anticipated next-generation iPads, set to be unveiled Thursday.

Ireland plans to close tax loophole that helped Apple save billions

By •

Heading
Photo: The Dark Knight
Photo: The Dark Knight

Ireland will apparently announce plans to phase out its “Double Irish” tax arrangement that has allowed companies like Apple and Google to save billions, according to a Reuters report citing sources familiar with the matter.

Over the past 18 months, the country has been criticized by both the United States and Europe for tax loopholes that let companies slash their overseas tax rate to single digits. Preliminary findings by the European Commission recently slammed a “sweetheart” tax deal on the part of Ireland that allowed Apple to avoid paying taxes by building up a massive offshore cash pile of $137.7 billion in the country.