News - page 1348

Write, the distraction-free note-taking tool that’s been a great success on iOS, is ready to make writing easier on your Mac.

Whether you’re a student, a blogger, a novelist, or simply too forgetful to remember what you need to pack your holiday, Write’s incredibly simple design and clutter-free user interface can make writing a more enjoyable experience. But don’t let its minimal beauty fool you — Write is packed with handy features.

The Guardian — a.k.a. the British newspaper known for breaking news of the Edward Snowden leaks in 2013 — has just launched its new and improved iOS app.

The upgrade adds a cleaner design, alongside a more personalized user experience for iOS users. What this means is ramped-up interactivity, thanks to the integration with GuardianWitness, the newspaper’s user-generated content platform which allows readers to contribute comments, photos, and videos.

From a rare Apple Lisa computer to the original rainbow-colored signs from the Cupertino offices there have been some great Apple items up for auction as of late. Now you can add “rare Mac prototype” to that list.

A prototype model made out of painted foam, this alternate Macintosh LC model was built in 1989 by Apple’s Industrial Design Group and Matrix Product Design (which later became IDEO). Unlike the actual Mac LC that shipped it has a vertically-oriented screen: possibly targeted toward the business world, rather than the artistic, publishing and educational markets that the Mac traditionally sold to at the time.

I’m a streaming music junkie. I’ve subscribed to Rdio, Spotify and Slacker to rein in my tendency to hoard (and then not back up) music.  Putting a tenner on monthly subscriptions for an all-you-can-listen auditory buffet model appealed to me more than an album-binging approach, too.

Still, the Apple and Beats acquisition rumors (now fact) struck me as tone deaf – what does Beats bring that the other services don’t? So I decided to take the Beats app on my iPhone for good long spin.

Anyone who read my review of Jurassic Park Builder for iOS knows that I’m a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise — and like a lot of fans of the series I’m eagerly awaiting Jurassic World, the forthcoming movie sequel set to stomp into movie theatres June 12, 2015.

For those of us craving plot details like a t-rex craves human-sized snacks, director Colin Trevorrow recently shed some light in an interview for SlashFilm.

Despite the fact that Steve Jobs didn’t want Apple to become a company in which people were constantly asking themselves “What Would Steve Do?” after his death, it was inevitable that people would compare Apple under Tim Cook to Apple under its legendary co-founder.

Asked about that topic during an interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at yesterday’s Re/code Code Conference — and specifically whether there had been a “reset” period following Jobs’ death —  Eddy Cue commented that:

If you’re a fan of RPGs you’ll be instantly familiar with Square Enix’s superb series of Dragon Quest games. Among those games, the most famous is Dragon Quest VIII — a game which has sold 4.9 million units (and counting) worldwide since its launch in 2005.

Close to a decade after landing on video game consoles, an iOS port of Dragon Quest VIII was given a soft-launch in Japan five months ago, and now it’s available internationally via the App Store.

If you love Reeder 2 on your iPhone or iPad, great news: the best news reading app out there has come back to the Mac, after almost a year being MIA.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is usually as reliable a source as it gets when it comes to what’s in the works with Apple’s supply chain. The analyst has correctly predicted countless major new Apple products months in advance, just by tracing the threads in the supply chain spider web.

But not even Kuo is infallible. Notable Apple journalist Jim Dalrymple has shot down Kuo’s latest report, suggesting that Apple will introduce a new iMac and a lower-capacity 8GB iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference, with just a single word: “Nope.”

Now that Apple’s acquisition of Beats has finally been made official, Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine took the stage at the the inaugural Code Conference tonight to give a peak behind the scenes of deal, as well as glimpse at what’s to come in 2014 – including the best product pipeline the company has seen in 25 years.

The interview comes as Apple is preparing for its annual developer’s conference in San Francisco next week where it’s expected to announce new versions of iOS and OS X, and while will have to wait to see if any hardware will come out as well, Eddy Cue is already hard at work hyping Apple’s upcoming products.

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg led the conversation with Eddy Cue starting things off by parroting Tim Cook’s statements that Apple acquired Beats for three reasons: Talent, Headphones, and a Music Subscription Service, before revealing these eight new tidbits on the deal as well as the future of Apple:

Three weeks of speculation and rumors have led to this. Apple is finally buying Beats for $3 billion.

News of the deal broke weeks ago but the tech world is still scratching its head, wondering why Apple decided to buy a company that peddles overpriced plastic headphones and is co-anchored by one of hip-hop’s most notorious MCs.

Forgetting the fact the fact that Beats has captured 60% of its market, makes over $1 billion in sales and has one of the fastest growing music subscription service in the U.S., the acquisition is the most perplexing Apple purchase since NeXT, but now that Tim Cook has broken the silence on why Apple bought Beats we finally answers you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Beats Music is now officially being bought by Apple, and to celebrate, the streaming-music service is extending its free trial and lowering the cost of a yearly subscription by $20.

Apple’s acquisition of Beats is official, and it’s clear that the move is more about the talent Apple is getting than anything else.

After the buyout was announced this afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the reasoning behind the company’s decision. “What Beats brings to Apple are guys with very rare skills,” he said in an interview with Re/code. “People like this aren’t born every day. They’re very rare. They really get music deeply. So we get infusion in Apple of some great talent.”

So it’s obvious that Apple thinks very highly of the people at Beats. But who exactly are they getting as part of the deal?

Two weeks after the news of the deal was first reported, Apple has officially announced its buyout of Beats Electronics for $3 billion.

Apple will keep the Beats headphone and Beats Music brands separate as part of the deal. As previously reported, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine will join Apple full time.

“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.”

An analyst has traveled to Apple’s supply chain in Taiwan, and he claims to have learned about the rumored iWatch.

While the design of Apple’s upcoming wearable has been a point of contention so far, Brian Blair of Rosenblatt Securities claims that it will feature a round face. He also backs up previous reports that the device will go into production this summer. Based on the increasing frequency of such claims, we may see an actual iWatch materialize by the end of this year.

And that’s not all Blair has learned from supply chain sources.

Your Ouya just got a little creepier thanks to the developer of creepy platforming game, Whispering Willows. The trailer (below) shows protagonist Elena as she searches for her missing father through innovative environmental puzzles and supernatural obstacles.

“[Elena] must harness the powers of her heritage,” writes developer David Logan on the Kickstarter page, “utilizing astral projection and other ethereal abilities to find her father before he, too becomes lost to the hopeless morass of the Willows estate.”

If that (and the trailer below) doesn’t have you dusting off your tiny Android-powered gaming cube, we don’t know what will.

Coming up with a slogan can be tricky business. Although Apple has a history of thinking different about its catchphrases, when the Cupertino company unfurled the banners for WWDC 2014 this week, we were unimpressed.

This year’s slogan — “Write the Code. Change the world.” — sounds like it came straight from Mike Judge’s hit comedy show Silicon Valley. In the HBO series, every half-baked startup either wants to “revolutionize” or “make the world a better place” through things like “software-defined data centers” or “scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed data bases with ACID transactions.”  Code Flappy Bird, save the world!

Here are some of Apple’s WWDC hits and misses from over the years.

Think we’re off the mark? Let us know in the comments!

Coding marathons, packed parties and more fanboys than should be legally permissible in one building await developers when Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off in San Francisco next week, and while the conference is serious business for most devs, who says you can’t have a little bit of fun too?

WWDC rips into high gear with a keynote on June 2nd followed by days of coding sessions, high-profile speakers, hands-on labs and tons of get togethers for developers of all sizes and backgrounds.

Sneaking in time to tour San Francisco is nearly impossible thanks to the stuffed scheduled at WWDC and nearby AltConf, but whether you’re coming to WWDC as a first timer or a seasoned vet, here are nine things every Apple fan must do at least once while visiting the Bay Area.

We showed you ours. Now it’s your turn. Here are the items big and small that Cult of Mac readers most want to see designed and produced by the mothership. We’ve got Apple solar pens, food packaging and yes, puppies — because even pets could use the Sir Jony treatment.

Good news if you’re a student! Apple has introduced reduced education pricing for both the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini — with prices for the two tablets starting from $469 and $379.

This represents a $30 discount for the iPad Air and a $20 for the iPad mini, and also marks the first time that Apple has included the iPad in its special discount program. Last year the company cut the educational price of the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro to $999, while Apple additionally offers discounts on its entire Mac line in its education store.

Mobile developer Vivid Games has dropped a new trailer for its forthcoming open world actioner Godfire: Rise of Prometheus and — wow!

If I wasn’t excited about getting my Greek mythological badass on prior to watching these tantalizing glimpses of what’s to come, then I certainly am now. In short: the game looks incredible, with epic boss battles, gorgeous graphics, and all the blood and guts you could hope for.

With the success of apps like comiXology showing just how much mileage there is in digital comics, it’s no wonder creators are keen to get on board!

Today comic book legend Alan Moore (the eccentric brains behind Watchmen, V For Vendetta and other classics) has announced that he is partnering with a team of creators and funding bodies to produce a digital comics app called Electricomics — which will launch with four original comic titles and, somewhat surprisingly, an open-access platform for comics creators to develop digital comics of their own.

Apple devices are already wiping the floor with the competition in Japan — but things look to be getting even better on the iOS front, thanks to news that the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display are set to launch on the DoCoMo network in two week’s time.

With more than 63 million mobile subscribers, NTT DoCoMo is the largest mobile service provider in Japan.

“With the addition of iPad alongside iPhone, we now offer the complete lineup of Japan’s most popular mobile devices on the nation’s most reliable LTE network,” says NTT DoCoMo CEO Kaoru Kato.

Apple says that iCloud was not hacked, following on from the news that a number of iOS and Mac users in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. report have had their devices remotely locked in exchange for ransom.

It’s been speculated that the hacking in question was done using login credentials gained from users as a result of recent data breaches and then used as Apple ID logins to lock users out via iCloud. While this may be the case, Apple says that it is not the result of the iCloud being compromised in any way.

So far, we at Cult of Mac have not been big fans of Amazon’s acquisition of ComiXology. Although we’ve previously praised them as the iTunes of comic books, the first thing the e-shopping giant did upon purchasing Comixology was stop allowing you to purchase comics directly within the app on iOS, presumably to get around paying Apple its 30% cut.

It was an anti-consumer move that made the app infinitely less appealing for digital comic readers, but Amazon has now announced something that might take some of the sting out: they’re releasing a free comic a day for the next three weeks. That means 19 free comics, which should be enough to tempt anyone who lovers comics to at least download the app.