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iSkin’s Claro GearCare Combo Is An iPhone Case With Accident Insurance

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Q) What’s safer than keeping your iPhone in a soft case to protect against unexpected falls and impacts? A) a soft case that just happens to give you accidental damage insurance.

That’s the neat concept behind iSkin’s new Claro GearCare combo, which combines the clarity of a hard plastic case, the protection of a soft-gel case and the security of, well, a good warranty service — thanks to an included GearCare Accidental Damage Warranty Service.

Samsung Takes Aim At More Than iPad In New Ad [Video]

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Samsung is back at it with a new ad that makes fun of the iPad. But this time the Korean company decided to go after all of its competition in one fell swoop; the Microsoft Surface and Amazon Kindle are also called out.

The whole ad consists of the same recycled arguments (you can’t do two things at once on an iPad, etc.), and there’s the usual flair of weirdness Samsung seems to be so fond of in its TV spots. My favorite exchange:

“So, your Samsung looks better than my iPad because it has got more pixels.”

“Right.”

“But mine has got the Retina thingy.”

San Antonio’s Bookless Public Library Takes A Page Out Of Apple’s Playbook

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(Credit: Eric Gay / Associated Press)
(Credit: Eric Gay / Associated Press)

Want to know what a library created by Apple might look like?

A public library in San Antonio, called BiblioTech, has become the U.S.’s first bookless public library — letting patrons check out five e-books at a time either on their home devices, or using the tablets or one of the 48 iMac computers featured in the Apple Store-inspired library.

Personal Hotspots Causing Problems For iOS 7.1 Users

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Since updating to iOS 7.1, a number of users have complained of tethering issues — meaning that information doesn’t save when trying to entering custom APN settings into a device’s Cellular menu.

In the update, Apple has apparently disabled users from setting up Personal Hotspots on carriers who either aren’t official iPhone partners, or who don’t support the feature.

Recents Gives You All Your Social Media News In One iOS App

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If you’re looking for a one-stop-shop to aggregate all your recent updates from various social networks, you may want to take a look at the newly-launched Recents iOS app.

Currently supporting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, the app features a clean interface optimized for viewing different types of content — whether that be an article from Facebook or Twitter, or a photo or video from Instagram or Tumblr.

How Learning Your Behaviour Means Your iPhone Never Runs Out Of Juice Again [Patent]

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BlackBerry CEO John Chen recently dismissed iPhone users as “wall huggers” due to his suggestion that they constantly have to hug walls looking for electricity sockets to stop their phones running out of battery midday.

Two patents published Thursday show that Apple is not taking similar criticism lying down, as it actively investigating the possibility of intelligently discerning when, where and how we use our iOS devices — and utilizing this information to tweak performance to prolong battery life.

Connect Three Bluetooth Music Sources Simultaneously With Grace’s 3-Play

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Imagine the chaos that could be achieved by connecting three iPhones to a single stereo using a three-way cable splitter, and letting everyone fight for the right to run the party.

Now imagine that you can do the same thing, only wirelessly. That’s the idea behind the 3Play, a Bluetooth receiver from Grace Digital that’ll let you and your friends all share the music you love simultaneously.” Simultaneously!

Steve Jobs’ Luxury Yacht Spotted Sailing In Mexico

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(Credit: Roberto Verde / Instagram)
(Credit: Roberto Verde / Instagram)

Venus — the 256-foot super-yacht, commissioned by Steve Jobs — has been sighted in Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas bay.

Despite telling journalist John Markoff in 1980 that, “There’s no yacht in my future,” Jobs began working on building his dream sailing vessel around 2008 prior to his liver transplant. Jobs commissioned legendary French designer Philippe Starck to design the yacht, which cost more than €100 million to build, although Jobs died before he was able to use it.

Huge Pumping Speaker Reminds Us How Cool Sony Used To Be

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Remember back in the 1980s and some of the 1990s, when Sony made the coolest stuff around? Tiny Walkmans, awesome Hi8 video cameras and even some decent slimline (PC) laptop computers. Then it all went wrong, when Apple reinvented the Walkman as the iPad.

I’m not trying to say that the new Ultra Premium Hi-Res Bluetooth Speaker is about to turn the company around, but it is a reminder of what we used to love about Sony.

Jailbreakers Will Make The Pilgrimage To JailbreakCon Yet Again Next Month

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For the fourth year in a row, JailbreakCon will gather hackers, developers, and jailbreak enthusiasts from around the world under one roof. JailbreakCon 2014 will be held from April 12-13th at the South San Francisco Conference Center in sunny California.

Tickets are now on sale, and the lineup of speakers includes developers behind tweaks like Springtomize, and hackers like Cyril Cattiaux, who is better known as “pod2g.” The creator Cydia, Jay Freeman, will be speaking again as well.

Even The 8GB iPhone 5c Makes The Samsung Galaxy S5 Look Like A Rip-Off

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The successor to the iPhone 5c is nearly here.
The successor to the iPhone 5c is nearly here.
Photo: Apple

Here’s a simple math question for you. How much more free space should a 16GB Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone have than an 8GB iPhone 5c?

If you said twice as much, wrong. That’s not Samsung math! Because in reality, an 8GB iPhone 5c has just 3.16 GB less usable storage than a flagship 16GB Galaxy S5.

This iPhone Screen Protector Is Supposed To Be Bulletproof, But Is It Really? [Video]

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Last month, Sir Lancelot’s Armor, a maker of screen protectors for smartphones, emailed Ars Technica and asked them if they would review the “first reusable screen protector for iPhones and iPads made out of bulletproof glass.”

So how bulletproof was their screen protector? Ars Technica put it to the test the only way they knew how… by firing a full clip from a Beretta into it at the range. Here’s how it did.

Apple Should Add This Simple ‘Search Settings’ Feature To iOS 8

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The Settings app in iOS is starting feel a bit crowded as each new update seems to bringing new tweaks and options to the main board and deeper menu. Control Center added quick access to key parts of the Settings maze, but we wouldn’t mind if Apple added this simple ‘Search Settings’ feature to iOS 8.

Rather than plunging multiple steps deep into the Settings app, this concept from Christoph Fahlbusch would bring the pull-down search bar into the Settings app, making it consistent with the ‘Search iPhone’ UI. It’d come in handy for quick tweaks, especially for less advanced users who are still trying to figure out where to turn on emjois.

Source: Dribble

Pandora Bumps Up Price On Its Ad-Free Streaming Service

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Photo: Pandora

iTunes Radio still has a long way to go before it catches up with Pandora’s number of subscribers, but in an effort to keep up with increasing royalty costs, Pandora announced this morning that it’s bumping up the monthly subscription price for Pandora One.

Starting in May new subscribers will have to pay $4.99 per month if they want their music stream ad free, which is still cheaper than competitors like Spotify and Rdio (both $9.99 per month).

Apple’s alternative, iTunes Radio is ad-free with $24.99 annual iTunes Match subscription, but Pandora is deciding to just drop the annual subscription option altogether.

Here’s a breakdown of the pricing changes:

New Arcade Game “Microtrip” Adds Science Into Fun Gameplay [Video Review]

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The science of the human body is something complicated, yet truly amazing. While the world leaves bodies prone to sickness, white blood cells can help to fight them. In the physics arcade game Microtrip players must help a blob trek its way through a strange body collecting white cells to stay alive. Do you think you can avoid all monsters standing in your way?

Take a look at Microtrip and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Microtrip brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

LA Teachers Are Angry District Spent $1 Billion On iPads Instead Of Repairs

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Maybe if students are staring at iPads they will be able to forget about cockroaches

 

The LA Unified School District made headlines when it pledged to make it rain iPads on students by spending $1 billion on Apple’s tablets, but teachers are more concerned of the rain leaking through their classroom roofs.

The school district’s initiative is aimed to enhance students educational experience but a number of angry teachers have started a ‘Repairs, Not iPads‘ page on Facebook filled with pictures of everything from rat feces on desks, broken toilets, dead mice, termite infestations, leaky roofs and more, along with a demand that district spend money on much needed repairs before iPads.

‘Too Drunk To Drive’ Offers The Good Kind Of Drunk-Dialing

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Too Drunk To Drive

So maybe one night you’re stumbling to your car and realize you really shouldn’t be driving. And also you’re so drunk that Siri can’t understand you. And the buttons in your contact list are so small.

Enter Too Drunk To Drive, an app that hopes to keep you from ending up dead in a molten hell of metal and glass. You preprogram it with the numbers of your local cab company or a reliable friend, and then all you have to do is plunk your drunken thumb down on one of the app’s two enormous and clearly labeled buttons.

Giving the other person directions is still up to you, though. So good luck with that.

Source:Too Drunk To Drive – Free | Steffen Lund Andersen

Asking Siri To Tell You A Tale Sheds Light On Her Complex Backstory

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Siri's usefulness has stood the test of time, but can 3D Touch?
Photo: Apple

Recently Cult of Mac described how among Siri’s Easter eggs is a whole back story — programmed by her creators, and accessible by asking just the right questions.

Beginning life as a five-year DARPA-backed project to build an intelligent virtual assistant, Siri certainly has some stories to tell: if only we could gain access to them.

When I wrote my story a couple of weeks ago, I asked readers to send in any insights they managed to unlock. Dallas-based tech columnist and CoM reader Jim Rossman read the article and sent in some interesting screenshots from his own conversations with Siri — revealing some insights that go beyond her usual “I was designed by Apple in California” spiel.

Macs in the Box: The Incredible Mac Collection of Marion Stokes. Now For Sale.

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Marion Stokes Macintosh Collection in a Rhode Island storage locker

Are you a Mac collector? An Apple investor? Do you like to buy old computers still new in their original packaging? If so, do we have a storage locker for you!

Marion Stokes was a librarian, activist and local access television producer from Philadelphia. Recently she made news for her incredible archive of 35 years of TV news broadcasts, recorded continuously on home videotapes from 1977 until her death in 2012. But Stokes was also a longtime Apple investor and Macintosh fan. Over the same timeframe she acquired nearly two hundred new-in-box Macintosh computers and related Apple gear, and kept much of this equipment sealed for posterity.

It’s another incredible history, about technology and one unique Silicon Valley tech entity. And it can be yours, if the price is right. The whole kit and caboodle is available on eBay, listed for the Buy It Now price of $100,000!

Classic Japanese RPG Shin Megami Tensei Descends On iOS

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As great as it when a new game, specifically designed for iOS, makes its way to the App Store, just as good is the appearance of new ports of classic games.

The latter is what we have with the newly-released Shin Megami Tensei — only with the added twist that this classic game has never previously been officially released outside Japan.

Vimeo Acquires Video Editing App Cameo

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Video sharing website Vimeo has acquired Cameo, a video-making app which launched last October.

Giving users the ability to create sophisticated video effects, including the ability to combine footage from multiple cameras, Cameo received plaudits from Apple, who named it in their “Best of 2013” awards.

Cult of Mac described the app as “Vine, but all grown up with muscles, a flashy wardrobe and a hip music collection.”

Burger King To Let You Buy Whoppers With Your iPhone

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Want to be able to order and pay for burgers using your iPhone?

Burger King has announced that it will be releasing a dedicated mobile app, featuring a Passbook-style virtual card that allows users to load on cash and then use this to make payments.

According to an article published by Bloomberg, the Burger King app will also include “coupons for deals, such as $1 any-size drinks and free fries, as well as nutrition facts.” A feature allowing you to place an order for pick-up at a later time will additionally be included.