SAN FRANCISCO — Cult of Mac is on the ground for Macworld/iWorld 2014 at the Moscone Center. We’ll be roaming the show floor and sitting in on workshops all day to bring you the coolest Apple-related stuff we can find.
You can follow us throughout Macworld on the liveblog below. No need to refresh the page; new posts will appear automatically!
SAN FRANCISCO — Right in the middle of the Macworld show floor, there’s a circle of 12 tables. They’re showing off a range of cool gadgets, like a combination battery/wall charger and a clever foldable iPhone stand.
The dozen products all started life as successful Kickstarter projects, and can be found for sale on BiteMyApple.co, an online store that sells Apple-related Kickstarter products.
The site is the brainchild of Chris Johnson. After founding the site three years ago, Johnson has grown it from $45,000 in annual revenues to more than $500,000. He runs the whole operation himself out of his small apartment in New York.
He’s even making a profit on the 12 tables here at Macworld.
FTL: Faster Than Light came out in September of 2012, and we’ve done nothing but rave about it since then.
The only thing missing from the FTL experience, though, was the ability to play the dang thing on an iPad. “How sweet would that be?” we thought.
Today’s our lucky day, then, as the developers behind the hot space-sim rogue-like have righted the wrongs in their universe by letting us all know that FTL would be available for the iPad (along with an Advanced Edition for the Mac and PC) this coming April 3.
SAN FRANCISCO — The New York Times is launching a new iPhone app on April 2nd in the App Store. Called NYT Now, the app will aggregate news from the Times as well as other publications. All stories will be handpicked by a 10-person team of Times editors and complied in daily reports.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Yahoo News Digest app is based around the same model. The difference with NYT Now is that it’s a paid service with the full backing of one of the most influential papers in the world.
It was a close call this week in our games department, as reviewer extraordinaire Evan Killham lobbied hard for his favorite, Words & Cards. Granted, it’s a great game, but I had to push back a bit. Plus, I’m the editor, so I win.
Star Wars Assault Team is kind of the perfect blend of role-playing game stickiness with digital collectible card game features, all put together with your favorite Star Wars characters to boot.
The writing is great, with plenty of nods to the iconic movie series, and we finally get to see something new: how you spell Chewbacca’s roars. Really, that’s worth the download right there.
Here’s our Game of the Week video below to show you a bit of the game play.
I’m always on the lookout for some nice accoutrements to make my working day a bit more delightful, and as an Apple fan, the better something looks and works, the more I want it.
Take these sweet Macbook lap desks and iMac risers–made of walnut and oak with a birch core–from Danish design firm Nordic Appeal: they’re light, super functional and as elegant looking as I’ve ever seen.
Ergonomically, it’s useful to bring your Mac screen to about eye level, and having these little risers and wedges will certainly help you do that, no matter what desk, coffee shop table or lap you ultimately do your work on.
The gym is good for helping you lose weight, gain muscle and so much more. In the app Nerdy Workout players must help a nerd try to bulk up and improve from his trainee ranking. By tapping and holding the left and right sides of the screen, players can continuously help the nerd lift reps of dumbbells. As monsters fly by you must be careful and time your lifts to keep your arms from being bitten off. How many reps do you think you can do before it’s game-over?
Take a look at the video and find out what you think.
This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Nerdy Workout – Joseph Rothenberg, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.
It’s become a begrudgingly accepted part of the App Store that the moment a popular game appears, the clones roll in with miniscule differences.
While most of us laughed at some of the ridiculous variations that emerged for a popular game like Flappy Bird (Flappy Beard Hipster Quest anyone?), it’s not quite so funny if you’re the developer of the original game in question.
With that in mind, the creators of hit puzzle game Threes recently took to their blog to complain about the growing number of ripoffs that have emerged in the App Store as of late:
Fancy yourself an MC in the making?
AutoRap by Smule, a popular app which transforms regular speech into legit rap, has just been updated to version 2.0 with several significant improvements.
Apple TV may have scored sales of $1 billion in 2013, but that hasn’t stopped Roku CEO and founder Anthony Wood from branding the device a “a money loser” and questioning why Apple would want to keep selling it.
The comments were made at the inaugural Code/Media event on Thursday, hosted by technology site Re/code. They arrive at a time when Apple is reportedly preparing a new version of the Apple TV that will integrate with Comcast’s network to provide users with a streaming TV.
Ahead of its April 4 U.S. theatrical release, Gameloft’s movie tie-in Captain America: The Winter Soldier – The Official Game has arrived in the App Store.
An original adventure co-scripted by Marvel, the game lets you play as Captain America as you lead a S.H.I.E.L.D. Strike Team to take down enemies. The game promises intense combat with plenty of tactical elements, RPG features which let you learn new fighting techniques and upgrade weapons, and an asynchronous multiplayer mode.
Citing people close to the situation, a new report by the WSJ claims that Amazon is planning to introduce an advertising-supported streaming television and music-video service.
This free service would represent a break from Amazon’s policy of linking video to its $99-a-year Prime subscription service. According to the rumor, Amazon would feature both original series and licensed content — and has discussed the effort with the creators of “Betas,” a show about a Silicon Valley startup produced for Prime last year.
Major League Baseball mobile companion app MLB.com At the Ballpark has just received a significant update.
While one new feature is the expected iOS 7 redesign, the most exciting update relates to Apple’s iBeacon technology. As Cult of Mac wrote back in September, MLB has installed iBeacons at 20 ballparks around the U.S. to offer iOS-using spectators point-of-interest mapping and other relevant contextual information during the 2014 MLB season. With MLB.com At The Ballpark version 3.0 support for iBeacons is included.
Along with the new Office Suite that launched on the iPad yesterday, Microsoft has updated its OneNote app to look like a proper iOS 7 app. OneNote is Microsoft’s Evernote competitor, and now it looks better than ever,
Quick – guess what the “Multiple Attachments” App does. Correctamundo! It lets you add multiple attachments to an email on iOS.
Transporter just took another step towards being a viable alternative to Dropbox for mobile users. Now the private cloud has become a “platform.” Don’t worry though – this just means that app makers are now free to add Transporter support to their apps, letting you sync and save your data from your iPad and iPhone.
Urban Outfitters, everyone’s favorite copyright-infringing chain store, is at it again with the Happy Plugs, earbuds from a “Swedish fashion and lifestyle brand that brings color to the world.”
Can you imagine a pair of Apple’s old Earbuds, only in color? Congratulations, because you just imagined the Happy Plugs, in a uncannily accurate piece of mind theater.
At last, a portable Thunderbolt drive that leeches its power from the Thunderbolt connector itself, just like a USB drive. And you can’t even lose the cable for WD’s new My Passport Pro – it’s built into the unit itself.
BusyCal from BusyMac, the app that saved busy people by being a way better calendar than the junk Apple ships with the Mac, now makes BusyContacts. Or has at least announced BusyContacts. Like BusyCal before it, BusyContacts takes your local address book and syncs it with any online contacts lists you may be using. The public beta should launch this summer.
Facebook Messenger, the iOS messaging app for the ubiquitous social network, has just updated with a couple of new cool features that will help cement the app’s place on your iPhone home screen.
While it already updated just a little while ago, there are some new additions that will make you sit up and take notice.
Like the (now-defunct) Monster-Beats partnership, V-Moda has been a key player in convincing the casual music afficionado that walking around with goofy-looking cans on your ears was actually a fashion win rather than a faux pas. Naturally, this would have been practically impossible had V-Moda not actually spent what seems like considerable effort crafting a dynamic, sharp look for their headphones.
V-Moda’s newest set, the XS, could probably be considered the successor to their portable, supra-aural M-80s — but with folding cups that V-Moda says dramatically increase portability, and in an effort to improve comfort and aesthetics, design refinements to the headband that attempt to completely eliminate the gap between the band and the user’s head.
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The hit bird slinging game Angry Birds has found its way on devices everywhere. While the Angry Birds series has brought developing company Rovio so much popularity, their branch company Rovio Stars aims to share the spotlight. The newest application from Rovio Stars is Word Monsters, a game that combines competitive head-to-head gameplay with word puzzles and monsters. Do you think you can beat all your friends and top the high score charts?
Take a look at the video and find out what you think.
This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Word Monsters – Rovio Stars Ltd., brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.
The stunningly gorgeous Yahoo! Weather app that inspired Apple’s own new iOS 7 app for iPhone and iPad has just gotten another update, adding some great features that only enhance the usability and beauty of the app.
Look, Legos are for everyone, ok? With the huge success of the latest Lego Movie, it’s clear that playing with the building bricks isn’t just for kids anymore, if it ever was.
If you’ve been in a comic, toy, or hobby shop lately, chances are you’ve seen the little random minifigure bags that you can buy, not knowing exactly which minifigure is contained within, like a mini treasure hunt.
Funcom is banking on this craze with its upcoming release of Lego Minifigures Online for iPad, Android tablets, and PC, hoping to trade on the fact that one of the coolest features of the modern Lego experience is the little people that seem to come with every construction model set sold.
Sadly, there’s no Mac version planned as yet, but the iPad game will play the same as the PC and Android versions, on the same servers.
Cult of Mac saw a preview of Pirate World for Lego Minifigures Online last week at GDC, and we’re finally allowed to post it below.
The day has finally come. During a keynote today in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled the Office suite for iPad. Rumors have said that Word would be unveiled for Apple’s tablet this month, but that’s not all; Microsoft has also released versions of PowerPoint and Excel.