Mobile menu toggle

News - page 1304

Environmental Protection Agency accidentally tweets about Kim Kardashian game, hilarity ensues

By

Screen Shot 2014-07-22 at 8.15.57 AM

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is pretty much everything wrong with mobile development, in a nutshell. A freemium game that invites users to waste ungodly amounts of money on stupid in-app purchases, the game is on track to make $200 million this year alone.

But it does have its fans. For example. the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office Of Water, which sent out a tweet Monday night telling everyone that it had reached the status of “C-List Celebrity” in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.

8 fantastic crowdfunding projects every techie ought to love

By

SITU is an attractive Bluetooth food scale that talks to your iPad. Created by former Apple employee Michael Grothaus — who came up with the idea while sitting in Apple’s Caffè Macs cafeteria — the device lets you see the exact nutritional content of any food you place on it, based on the food’s weight and broken down into calories, sugar, salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. The device itself is beautiful, too, with a simple but pleasing design that could have come straight out of Jony Ive’s workshop.Preorders will be available on SITU’s official site next month.

SITU is an attractive Bluetooth food scale that talks to your iPad. Created by former Apple employee Michael Grothaus — who came up with the idea while sitting in Apple’s Caffè Macs cafeteria — the device lets you see the exact nutritional content of any food you place on it, based on the food’s weight and broken down into calories, sugar, salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. The device itself is beautiful, too, with a simple but pleasing design that could have come straight out of Jony Ive’s workshop.

Preorders will be available on SITU’s official site next month.


Apple patent describes Pebble-style ‘iTime’ smart watch

By

rrgrgrg
Apple's long-awaited smart watch could be, appropriately enough, called iTime.

In what is quite possibly the strongest indication to date that Apple has been working on a smart watch for some time, on Tuesday the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an Apple patent related to a “Wrist-worn electronic device” referred to as iTime.

The patent was first filed back in 2011, and describes a device reminiscent of the Pebble smart watch — which would act as a notifications system for other Apple devices such as your iPhone and iPad, with information communicated wirelessly between these devices by way of Bluetooth. Alerts such as phone calls, text messages, and push notifications could be sent to your watch, with the user then made aware of these by way of audio, visual, or vibration cues.

Apple celebrates all the ways people customize their MacBooks in new ad

By

Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.36.41 PM

Apple has released a new TV ad for the MacBook entitled “Stickers.” It features music by Hudson Mohawke and a ton of cool decals and stickers that can spotted at an especially hipster coffee shop near you.

With most of its advertising efforts focused on the iPhone and iPad, Apple hasn’t had a Mac ad in a while. It’s nice to see the change of pace.

You can check out the full ad below:

Apple orders insane number of new iPhones, but 5.5-inch model faces setbacks

By

iphone_6_hajek3_5-1024x768

Apple is asking its manufacturing partners to make a record 70-80 million units of the iPhone 6 for the holiday season, according to The Wall Street Journal. What’s interesting is that Apple isn’t having suppliers make the 4.7 and 5.5-inch models simultaneously.

While it looks like Apple is expecting to sell more iPhones than ever before in the coming months, new technology used in the iPhone 6 (especially the 5.5-inch version) is still making production difficult.

The most breathtaking game of 2013 comes to life as a live show

By

Photo courtesy Naughty Dog
Photo courtesy Naughty Dog

“You have no idea what loss is,” says Joel, the protagonist in the best game of 2013, The Last Of Us.

On July 28, you’ll be able to watch a live stream of the principal actors read select lines from Naughty Dog’s cinematic hit. Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, Merle Dandridge, Hanna Hayes, and Annie Wersching — the main characters in the game — will take direction from none other than Neil Druckmann himself, the writer and director of The Last of Us. Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla will be on hand as well to play selections from his game score.

Check out the promo trailer below for more details.

Tomorrow’s Apple earnings are just the calm before the storm

By

Tim Cook leaves the stage at the end of the 2014 WWDC keynote. Photo: Roberto Baldwin/The Next Web
Tim Cook leaves the stage at the end of the 2014 WWDC keynote.
Photo: Roberto Baldwin/The Next Web

Don’t expect anything too exciting from Apple’s third quarter earnings tomorrow.

This is Apple’s slowest part of the year. The summer slump means no new hardware, which means no explosive sales growth. But that’s alright, because the best is yet to come.

Tim Cook and co. have promised that truly epic things are coming in the fall, and Wall Street is actually excited about Apple again.

Netflix finally brings most-wanted feature to Apple TV

By

IMG_1473

Binge watchers rejoice! Netflix has answered one the biggest complaints many have had for its Apple TV app.

Netflix has finally brought “Post-Play” to the Apple TV, a feature that automatically queues up and plays the next episode of a TV show while the current one ends. Post-Play has been present on the web, Netflix’s iOS app in the App Store, and many other platforms that offer Netflix for a long time. It’s finally on the Apple TV.

Hands on: See iOS 8 beta 4’s new features in action

By

post-288250-image-9b8e6591cdc5e4676dd2b99822b50501-jpg

With iOS 8’s expected September release getting closer and closer, anticipation for Apple’s updated mobile software is growing. Beta releases, pushed to developers every few weeks, show off the latest tweaks and new features, and today’s release of iOS 8 beta 4 is no exception.

In today’s video we go hands-on and take a quick look at everything new in the latest version of iOS 8. See a redesigned Control Center, the helpful new Tips app and other key upgrades to Apple’s mobile software.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Grief offers no relief in True Blood’s ‘Lost Cause’

By

Bill promises his bride that he'll survive the war. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO
Bill promises his bride that he'll survive the war. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO

This week, the residents of Bon Temps confront their grief head on. Sookie mourns Alcide, Lettie Mae mourns Tara, and Arlene mourns Terry. Andy makes the biggest decision of his life, while Eric and Pam continue their quest to find — and kill — Sarah Newland, the crazy Christian we all love to hate.

This fifth episode of the final season of HBO’s True Blood series focuses on love and loss, while we all start to come to terms with the death of some of our favorite characters as well as the end of the long-running television show. It’s a more restrained — and less hilarious — episode than last week, but we can only hope that we’re being set up for more over the top fun in the weeks ahead.

Spoilers ahead – you’ve been warned!

All the little tweaks Apple added to iOS 8 beta 4

By

iOS8

 

iOS 8 just got a little bit closer to completion for its launch this fall with the release of iOS 8 beta 4 this morning. Apple didn’t add any major new changes (unless you’re a hardcore lover of Control Center), but the new beta is full of tiny little tweaks that will make your iPhone feel like new when iOS 8 drops in September.

We’re still combing through all the new features Apple just added to iOS 8 beta 4, but there are already some big additions like the new Tips app, an improved Control Center, new Handoff settings and little tweaks galore.

Here are all the little features Apple added to iOS 8 beta 4:

Why Apple buyers are primed to pay premium

By

Cash-Money

Everyone knows that Apple does a stellar job of getting its users to upgrade to its latest version of iOS, but how does it do at convincing customers to buy its latest iPhones and iPads, rather than settling for cheaper older models?

Very well, and getting better all the time, according to new market research from the Chicago-based Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Looking at consumer data for the calendar quarter which ended June 30, CIRP noted that the flagship iPhone 5s accounted for an impressive 62 percent of total iPhone sales in the quarter, while the iPad Air took 52 percent of all iPad sales in the quarter. Why is this significant?

OS X 10.10 Yosemite beta 4 lands on the Mac Dev Center

By

7947999-Dark-Mode-Yosemite.jpg_fit_800_252C600

Apple seeded the 4th beta for OS X 10.10 Yosemite to developers this morning with preview build 14A298i.

The Yosemite beta program still hasn’t been opened to the public, but anyone with a developer account can pick up the OS X Yosemite beta 4 download from the Mac Dev Center. The update can also be scooped up from the Mac App Store by clicking Software Update under your Apple menu.

Apple seeds iOS 8 beta 4 to developers

By

iOS8iPhone

The newest beta version of iOS 8 has been seeded to developers by Apple this morning, two weeks after the release of iOS 8 beta 3.

iOS 8 beta 4 can be downloaded via an over the air update. Developers can pick also it up from the iOS Dev Center or from the direct download links posted below. We’re still downloading the update on our devices and will let you know what we new goodies we find. In the meantime, get to downloading:

Glowing Apple logo could serve up alerts on iPhone 6

By

phposir5n
Picture: uSwitch

The iPhone 6 could include a MacBook-style light-up logo, according to new photos uncovered by renowned Apple leaker Sonny Dickson.

The photos show an apparent iPhone 6 case, with a thin plastic space that would allow for a light to shine out. While nothing concrete suggests this, if true the light could be used to indicate at a glance what type of notification a user was receiving at any moment — perhaps pulsating white for a call, or flashing blue for a text message or Twitter update.

New iOS puzzler Dropu is what would happen if Tetris and Sudoku had a baby

By

screen568x568-5

A good mobile puzzle game is always welcome, and if you’re looking for something to augment your TwoDots and Threes games, developer Ricardo Fonseca is hoping he has something for you.

Called Dropu, his new iOS game is — as Fonseca describes it — what would happen “if Tetris and Sudoku had a baby.” As with Tetris, blocks fall from the sky and it’s your job as player to make sequences of them in order to clear lines.

Apple’s new Chongqing retail store continues aggressive Chinese expansion

By

The location of Apple's eleventh Chinese retail store.

Picture: 360Destination
The location of Apple's eleventh Chinese retail store.
Picture: 360Destination

Apple is set to open a new brick-and-mortar retail store at the Paradise Walk mall in China’s Jiangbei District of Chongqing, according to Apple’s official retail website.

The store will open at 10am local time on Saturday, July 26, and will represent the company’s eleventh Apple Store in China: the first of several that will be opening in 2014 and 2015.

Streaming video service Qplay shutting after less than 6 months

By

Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 10.48.37

Getting into the streaming TV business might be all the rage right now, but it’s far from an easy game to play. (Which is why Tim Cook referred to Apple TV as “a hobby” for so long.)

Proof positive of this is Qplay, the Internet video-device and iPad app startup launched by the founders of TiVo, which has announced that it’s closing shop less than six months after launching its debut product.

Exploding the iPhone 6 rumors into one beautiful infographic

By

Infographie-Rumeurs-iPhone-6

We’ve heard a lot of rumors about the upcoming iPhone 6. But which ones are true? With the release of Apple’s latest and greatest smartphones just three months away, we can start synthesizing the likelihood of which rumors will pan out (and which won’t).

This gorgeous infographic exploding the iPhone 6 into its various components does a great job of showing where the consensus is right now.